


Black Bird in A Blizzard

by the_savage_daughter_0627



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Developing Relationship, Dogs, Estrangement, Eventual Katara/Zuko (Avatar), F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Smut, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Zuko (Avatar), Procrastination Project, Snow, Tags May Change, Ursa Still Dies, Ursa made mistakes, Why Did I Write This?, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:34:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_savage_daughter_0627/pseuds/the_savage_daughter_0627
Summary: Zuko was only there to get his estranged mother's affairs in order. What he didn't expect was to fall for Katara, who knew his mother better than perhaps he ever did. All he knows is that no matter how badly he wants her, he can't stay.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 170
Kudos: 160
Collections: Zutara- some of my fave fics





	1. There's Nothing to Keep My Fingers Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, look at me procrastinating on my million other projects by writing an entire 10-chapter fic instead. (: 
> 
> I really have no explanation for this. None. All I know is the idea came to me, and I wrote it all in two weeks. But I really wanted to get this out before Zutara Month and Zutara Big Bang, so here ya go. Expect frequent updates and enjoy!
> 
> And brownie points to anyone who knows where the chapter title comes from :)

Zuko knew that he should have put chains on his tires when he rounded yet another curve in the road and hit a patch of black ice beneath the slushy snow, but of course, it was too late.

The Challenger’s back end skirted sideways as Zuko slowly let off the gas. The car spun 360 degrees before the hood buried itself in a four foot tall mound of snow that the plows had pushed off to the side of the road. 

It was anticlimactic, really, after fifteen seconds of pure terror, and Zuko exhaled softly as his heart thundered in his chest. Distantly, he wondered if it was a bad omen. 

Then Zuko stepped out into the frigid late afternoon air to check the damage. Maybe he should’ve taken his uncle’s advice and rented something with four-wheel drive, but it was too late now.

The Challenger was buried up to the front tires under the snow. The engine was still purring, which was hopefully a good sign. Zuko got back in the driver’s seat and shifted the car into reverse. The back tires scraped against the slick pavement while the front tires turned uselessly over the snow. Zuko pressed down on the gas and the engine roared, but it refused to go anywhere. 

“Damn it!” 

He smacked the steering column in frustration before he put the car in park and killed the engine. Zuko got back out and inspected the situation he was in with his hands on his waist, scowling. He was still twenty five miles from his destination (according to his GPS, anyway, which might not have been entirely reliable with his spotty phone service) and he hadn’t seen another car for about twenty minutes. He didn’t have anything he could use to dig the Challenger out with either.

He was as good as fucked. 

“Fantastic,” he muttered sarcastically to himself. “This trip is doomed.” 

As soon as the words left him, he heard the roar of a car engine. Zuko looked up and saw a lifted truck coming up the road. The driver was already slowing down, and a minute later the vehicle pulled up behind him. 

The door opened and a young man, who had his head shaved on all sides and a short ponytail, stepped out with a friendly smile on his face.

“Need some help?” the guy asked.

Zuko exhaled irately and nodded, casting his eyes over his car. “Yeah, I could use some help.”

The young man came closer and appraised the scene. “You got lucky. This could’ve been a lot worse. You shoulda put chains on back there.” 

“I’m aware of that,” Zuko said sharply. He closed his eyes briefly as the guy looked at him. “Sorry. I’m just...in a shitty mood.”

The young man knelt down beside the tire and inspected it. “I can’t say I blame you.” He stood up. “Hang on a sec. I might have something that can help.” 

Zuko watched as his rescuer went back to his Bronco and opened the back. A minute later, he came back carrying a box of cat litter.

“Cat litter?” Zuko asked curiously.

The man knelt down by the tire again and started to pour the litter onto the snow behind it. “Yep. It creates traction for the tire. Snow’s pretty soft, so hopefully you’ll be able to back out with no problem.” He looked at Zuko as he stood up. “I’m Sokka, by the way. What’re you doing way out here? You here for the resort or something?”

“No, not exactly.” Zuko looked away. “Thanks for stopping. I was worried I’d be out here for a while.”

“No problem. The locals are really friendly.” Sokka stood up and set the litter on the hood of his truck. “Give it a try.” 

Zuko got in his car and turned the engine over before he shifted into reverse and tried to back out again. But the tires just spun uselessly. Zuko cut the engine and got out.

Zuko looked at Sokka. “Any other suggestions?” 

He pursed his lips. “I could call Doc. He can pull you out and haul your car to town.” Sokka quirked his brow. “You  _ are  _ going to Blue Lake, right?”

Zuko crossed his arms over his chest. “Is there anything else around here?”

“Not really.” Sokka grabbed the litter and put it back in the truck. He opened his truck door and looked at Zuko. “You coming?”

“I thought you were calling someone.”

“I can’t until we get to town. No cell service,” Sokka replied. “I’ll give him a call when we get there. Come on.”

Zuko cast another look at his car. He didn’t know if he trusted leaving it out here, but that was probably just his city instinct. There was no one around. 

“It’ll be fine,” Sokka said, as though he’d read Zuko’s mind. 

With another sigh, Zuko walked over to the Bronco and climbed in on the passenger side. At least it was warm. Sokka started up the road and Zuko cast one last glance at his car before it was a fading black dot behind them.

“So what are you doing up here if you’re not here for the resort?” Sokka asked as he drove. Light snow flurries were starting to fall. “Do you know someone who lives up here?”

Zuko looked out the passenger window. He didn’t feel like talking about this, especially with a stranger. “Not exactly.”

“You know, these vague, cryptic answers are starting to make me question my generosity,” Sokka drawled. “What if you’re a serial killer?”

“I’m  _ not, _ ” Zuko insisted irately. “And I didn’t ask you to stop and help me.”

“You’re right. But if we were all assholes, you’d still be sitting there,” Sokka replied coolly. He glanced at Zuko. “Or worse, you’d be trying to walk into town right now.” Zuko just snorted, and Sokka held a hand up as a peace offering. “Alright, you don’t have to answer my questions. But I’m just gonna warn you, the townspeople aren’t going to like you very much if you’re so aloof. Which might be bad if you plan on staying for a while.” 

“Well, I’m not,” Zuko said gruffly. “I’ve just got a few things to take care of and then I’ll be on my way.” 

“Okay, then.” Sokka looked over at him again. “D’you at least have a name?”

“Zuko,” he told him grudgingly. 

His eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Are you Ursa’s son?” 

Zuko blanched, surprised for a moment. “You know my mom?”

Sokka let out a short chuckle. “It’s a small town, bud. Everyone knows everyone.” His eyes cut to Zuko again. “But everyone knows Ursa. She owns—owned—the bar.”

His throat suddenly felt tight. “Oh.” 

Zuko didn’t know what else to say. He guessed it made sense—Google had told him that the town had a population of 312. And it seemed like his mother had lived there for many years. Of course people would know her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sokka said quietly after a moment.

Zuko stiffened in his seat. “Thanks.” He peeked over at Sokka. “Do you know a Katara? She was the one who called me and...told me.”

Sokka nodded. “Yeah. She’s my sister. She works at the bar.” 

“Oh,” Zuko said again.

Sokka offered him a short smile. “Small world, amiright?”

“You could say that.” 

Sokka cleared his throat. “Were you going out to her place?”

“Yeah,” Zuko answered. “Your sister gave me the address.” 

“Want me to drop you off there?” Sokka asked.

“Yeah.” Zuko looked out the window at the blur of white snow passing by. “That’s fine.”

* * *

“Well, there goes that idea, I guess,” Sokka said a half an hour later as they looked at the massive drift of snow that the snowplows had inadvertently dumped in front of the road that led up to Ursa’s house.

“Shit,” Zuko muttered exasperatedly. He scrubbed his hand down his face. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”

“Don’t sweat it.” Sokka turned the truck around. “We’ll stop by the bar, get ahold of Doc, and grab a bite to eat. I can probably get someone by to clear the driveway tomorrow.”

“What about tonight?” Zuko bit out. 

“You can probably get a room over at the resort,” Sokka suggested. “It’s not too bad, and the rates are decent.”

Zuko huffed out a derisive breath and said nothing else as Sokka drove back into town.

His mom’s house was somewhere on the outskirts, passed the small cluster of aging buildings that made up the town proper. Sokka told him her house was situated right beside the lake, as was the majority of town, although it was frozen over now. The town itself was underwhelming at best. 

A few minutes later, Sokka pulled up into the small parking lot of a dark brown building. A yellow hand-painted sign beside the door displayed the name, and Zuko felt his heart pull painfully in his chest as he read the name:  _ The Drunken Turtleduck. _ The animal was painted beside the name.

Turtleducks were a creature they had invented together when Zuko was a child during a game where they had to combine two animals. Why, Zuko didn’t remember now. But he had spouted off turtleducks, and his mother had found it absolutely delightful. 

_ Why did you go, Mom?  _ Zuko thought as he stared at the sign.  _ Why did you leave me and Azula behind?  _ He hoped to find the answer here.

“We never understood the name,” Sokka remarked, seeing the way Zuko’s eyes were drawn to the sign. “What the hell’s a turtleduck? But it makes it memorable. We just call it  _ The Duck  _ though.” 

Zuko nodded, unable to speak for a moment. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the cold air. He burrowed deeper into his way-too-thin jacket, wishing he’d bought a parka. Sokka chuckled as he came around the hood of the Bronco, pointedly tugging on the fur-lined hood of his parka.

“A little unprepared, are you?” Sokka quipped with a grin.

Zuko glared at him, and Sokka just chuckled as he pulled the door open and the two of them stepped inside. It was, thankfully, warm inside, and it smelled like every other bar he’d ever been into: greasy food, floor polish, liquor, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke. Soft indie music played from the speakers. 

The foul weather seemed to have kept everyone home, as only a handful of booths and three bar stools were occupied. A pretty girl stood behind the bar, her long brown hair twisted into a braid that fell down her back. When she looked up at the sound of the bell over the door, Zuko saw how bright blue her eyes were. Her face split into a smile when she saw Sokka.

“Hey, what are you up to?” she asked Sokka as he and Zuko snagged two stools in front of her.

Sokka jerked his thumb at Zuko. “Saving a wayward stranger. He managed to spin out and bury his fancy sports car in a snowdrift.” 

“It’s a muscle car,” Zuko bit out in defense of himself, but it was weak. 

“It’s not built for the snow, is what it is,” Sokka said, and Katara let out a light chuckle. Then he grew serious as he looked at his sister. “This is Ursa’s son.”

Katara sobered as she took him in. Zuko wanted to flinch and turn his face away, so she couldn’t see his scar, but he forced himself to meet her gaze as she offered him a soft, sympathetic smile.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I just wish it were under better circumstances. I’m Katara. We spoke on the phone.” She extended her hand across the bar, and Zuko shook it briefly. “Your mom was a wonderful person.”

“Zuko,” he said stiffly. “It’s nice to meet you too, Katara.”

He’d only spoken to her twice, the first time when she had called to ask about what he wanted done with his mother’s things. Zuko hadn’t even known she was  _ dead _ . His father did, though, and that had led to a huge argument, which had led to the second time he’d talked to Katara. 

“Let me get you a drink and something to eat,” Katara said. “How about a burger and a beer?”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, the corner of his lips pulling up in a wan smile. “That sounds good.”

* * *

Zuko had to admit that the food was great and the company was better. After Sokka had stepped aside to call Doc to tow Zuko’s car, they had talked lightly about anything that didn’t concern Zuko’s mother. The two siblings had a friendly demeanor about them that lifted Zuko’s spirits almost effortlessly. Before he knew it, he was laughing along with them as if they were old friends rather than strangers.

Katara tended the bar while she talked to him and her brother, and when she showed out the last customer and turned the  _ open _ sign to  _ off _ (at the incredibly early hour of ten p.m.), Zuko was surprised to see how much time had passed without his notice. 

“When will I get my car back?” Zuko asked Sokka as Katara disappeared into the back. 

Sokka slid off of his stool and moved around to the other side of the bar counter, rooting for something out of Zuko’s view. “It’s already back. It’s out in the parking lot. Doc texted me a couple of hours ago.”

Zuko’s jaw dropped. “And you didn’t tell me?”

Sokka looked up at him as he grabbed a bottle of cleaner and a rag. “What, you got somewhere to be?” Zuko snorted. “You looked like you were having a good time. I didn’t think it mattered since you’re gonna be staying at the resort anyway.”

“What did I hear about you staying at the resort?” Katana asked as she came back out. She shooed Sokka away and started wiping down the counter.

“The road to Ursa’s is blocked,” Sokka told her. “I’m gonna give Haru a call in the morning, see if he can’t get his dad’s snowplow out there to clear it. So Zuko’s staying at the resort tonight.” 

Katara looked at Zuko, her brow knitting. “You don’t have to stay there. That’s silly.” She offered him a sweet smile. “Why don’t you stay with me?”

“What?” Zuko blinked at her. 

He was taken aback by her generosity. Who in their right mind would invite a  _ stranger  _ to stay with them? For all she knew, he  _ was  _ a serial killer. He wasn’t, but still. 

Zuko shrugged his shoulders. “It's not a big deal. I can just stay at the resort or whatever.”

“No.” Katara shook her head as she continued to wipe down the counter. “You’re Ursa’s son. I can’t let you do that when I’ve got a perfectly fine couch.” She gave him a pointed look. “And honestly, the resort’s a little expensive.”

“Oh, wait ‘til you see his car,” Sokka piped up from where he was putting the chairs up on the tables. “I don’t think money is any issue.”

Zuko scowled at him, but the roguish young man wasn’t looking at him. 

Katara ignored her brother and gave Zuko a pleading look. “Please. Your mom was...amazing, Zuko. Let me do this for you.” 

Zuko swallowed hard. How could he tell her no? And really, he wanted to get to know her. It was clear that she was close to his mother. Zuko felt like he barely knew Ursa at all. Maybe Katara could help him answer some of his questions.

“Well...okay,” he said at last. “I appreciate it.”

She beamed a smile at him that warmed his heart for some reason. “You’re welcome. Now come on. Let’s get this bar closed down.”

The three of them worked to get the bar cleaned up. It was clear that this was something Katara and Sokka were used to doing; they moved around each other with practiced ease. Soon, they were done and Katara was turning off the lights before she locked the door behind them.

She took one look at his Challenger, which, thankfully, didn’t look damaged from its time spent in a snowdrift, parked beside Sokka’s Bronco, and arched her brow at Zuko.

“That will never make it up to my house,” she told him bluntly. “You can ride with me.” She started for the blue Ford Ranger parked in the corner of the lot. 

“But—”

Sokka clapped him on the shoulder. “No one’s gonna steal it. And don’t try to argue with my sister. You’ll lose.”

Zuko exhaled. “Fine. Just let me grab some of my stuff, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Katara called to him. She was already in her truck and warming up the engine.

“Good night, dude.” Sokka dipped his head in Zuko’s direction before he went to his own truck and climbed inside.

Zuko popped the trunk of his car and grabbed his bag that had his clothes and toiletries. Then he crossed the lot and walked around to the passenger side of Katara’s truck. He climbed in beside her and dropped the bag at his feet, exhaling quietly. When he looked up, he found Katara was watching him. She looked away quickly.

“What?” Zuko asked.

She shook her head as she reached for her seatbelt. “Nothing. This just...almost feels surreal. Ursa used to talk about you all the time. I just never thought I’d meet you. And you look a lot like her.”

Zuko frowned. “Why?”

Katara reversed out of the parking space and pulled out onto the narrow road. “She just...said that you guys were estranged. She never really told me why.”

Zuko looked out the window, scowling. “It’s complicated.”

“Ursa seemed like a very complicated woman.” 

“I wouldn’t really know. We  _ were  _ estranged.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Zuko shrugged. “Shit happens.” 

They fell into silence as Katara drove out of town. After a while, she turned down a narrow road that rose steeply. The snow chains on her tires allowed her truck to maneuver effortlessly up the snow-packed road, and Zuko understood why she said his car wouldn’t make it. 

They rounded a bend and her house came into view. It was small, but homey. The porch light was on and cast a yellow glow on the snow in the yard. He could see lifted flower beds, barren now, where she probably grew flowers or vegetables in spring. It was a nice little place.

She parked the truck and the two of them got out. Zuko followed her inside. It was cold and dark, and as soon as Katara turned on a light, a large dog came barreling down the hallway, tail wagging.

“Hi, Kira,” Katara greeted the dog with affectionate petting before she set her purse down and turned to Zuko. “She was your mom’s dog. I brought her here after…”

Zuko let the dog sniff his fingers. “Yeah.” 

Katara moved around the small space, turning on more lights before she went to the woodstove in the corner of the room and started messing around with the kindling.

“I’ll get a fire going so it’ll be warmer in here,” Katara told him. “You can go get cleaned up and whatnot. Bathroom is the door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

Zuko took his bag and went into the small bathroom. It was a tiny space, with just enough room for a shower, toilet, sink, and cabinet.  _ How can people live in such cramped spaces?  _ Zuko wondered as he shrugged out of his shirt. 

Once he was changed, he went back into the living room. Katara was nowhere to be seen, but he could hear the fire crackling in the woodstove and feel the heat already emanating from it. He sat down on the couch.

A moment later Katara emerged from her bedroom. She’d changed into a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt. She was carrying an armload of blankets and a few pillows. She offered him a kind smile.

“Here you go,” Katara said as she sat the bedding down on the arm of the couch. “This should keep you warm.”

“Thank you,” Zuko told her sincerely. “I appreciate it.”

Katara shrugged before she curled up on the end of the well-worn couch. “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. If there’s anything you need...just let me know.”

“Thanks,” Zuko said again. 

She stood up and checked on the fire before she turned back to him. “It should be good for the night.”

Then she went back to the door and stuffed her feet into her boots and pulled on her thick parka. She whistled for Kira, and then she and the dog stepped outside. 

Zuko got up and made his makeshift bed. He probably would have been more comfortable sleeping in an actual bed at the resort, but he was strangely grateful for Katara’s presence. It was comforting, somehow.

She came back inside after a few minutes, shaking off the cold as she stepped out of her boots and parka. Snowflakes glistened in her hair. Kira shook the snow off before she plodded over to Zuko.

“Come on, girl,” Katara said to the dog. “Let’s get to bed.” The dog willingly went to Katara’s side. She smiled at him. “There’s bottled water in the fridge if you get thirsty, and you can probably find something to eat in there if you get hungry.”

“Thanks.”

Katara turned off the lights until only the end table lamp was on. She gave him one last smile before she headed down the hallway to her bedroom.

“Good night, Zuko,” she said softly.

He smiled at her retreating back. “Good night...Katara.”

* * *

Zuko woke up from another nightmare. It was the same one he’d almost always had: the one where his father burned him. As he startled awake, shirt clinging to his sweat-dampened skin, Zuko felt the heat from the woodstove and knew that was the cause of the bad dream. He always slept in a cool room, as warmth seemed to trigger the nightmare more.

He sat upright and scrubbed his hand down his sweaty face. Then he tossed off the blankets and padded down the short hallway and into the bathroom. 

When he looked at his reflection, his eyes were wide and his skin was pale and damp. He looked haunted.

Zuko splashed cold water over his face before he relieved his bladder and went back to the main room. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drinking deeply from it. His scar was itching, like it sometimes did when he had bad dreams or remembered the moment he got it. He rubbed at the wrinkled skin irritably before he went back to the couch. 

It was still too warm, so he shrugged out of his shirt before he laid back down. He figured he would be awake before Katara anyway, as he was naturally an early riser.

He closed his eyes, but he didn’t fall back asleep for a long while, listening to the wood pop in the stove. When he finally fell asleep, it was restless and uneasy.


	2. I Live Like A Hermit in My Own Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko helps Katara out around her property while waiting for the road to his mom's house to be cleared. His emotions are all over the place, and he knows it's only going to get worse when he finally makes it out to his mom's cabin.

Zuko woke up to the feeling of something cold and wet pressing against his exposed bicep. He startled and looked over to find Kira’s warm dark eyes watching him. For a moment, he’d forgotten where he was.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

“Kira, leave him alone!” came Katara’s scolding voice from the kitchen. 

Zuko pushed himself into a sitting position, forgetting that he was shirtless. He looked up and saw Katara in the kitchen. She had a flannel bathrobe around her shoulders and her hair was still in a braid, although it was slightly frayed now.

“Good morning,” Katara said as she offered him a smile. “Coffee’s on.”

“Oh, cool. Thanks.” 

Zuko pushed the blankets aside before he stood up and reached for his shirt. When he poked his head through, he looked up and found Katara had been watching him. She looked away quickly, a pink blush rising in her cheeks. 

Zuko ducked into the bathroom before he joined her in the kitchen where she was currently making some toast. 

“I can make you some, too,” Katara said when she saw him looking. “Or we can go to the bar and I can cook you a  _ real _ breakfast there.” She chuckled; a light, twinkling sound. “I spend most of my time at the bar, so I eat there a lot. So I don’t really keep much on hand.”

“Oh.” Zuko noticed that she had set out a coffee mug for him and he poured himself a cup. He took a sip before he looked at her. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“You’re right,” Katara said bluntly. She smiled. “But I want to.” 

Zuko leaned against the counter and took another drink of his coffee. “How soon do you think your brother’s buddy can get the road cleared up at my mom’s?”

Katara shrugged as the toaster popped. She turned her back to him and began putting butter on her toast.

“Probably not for a few hours,” she said. “He’ll wait for full daylight to give the frost a chance to thaw. It’ll make it easier to plow it.” 

_ Great  _ is what he thought. “Oh” is what he said. 

Katara smiled at him from over her shoulder. She was actually really pretty, even in her pajamas and with no makeup on. 

“Sorry to disappoint,” she told him. “I’m sure you’re eager to get there.”

Zuko looked down at his coffee. “Sort of.” 

“You’re not much of a conversationalist, are you?” Katara inquired as she turned around and took a bite of her toast. 

Zuko shook his head. “I never have been. Sorry I’m lousy company.” 

Katara let out a small laugh. “No, you’re fine. It reminds me of her. Ursa. She wasn’t one to talk just to fill a silence. Everything she said had a purpose.”

“I know,” Zuko said, brow furrowing. He appraised Katara. “You knew her pretty well then?”

Katara nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so. She hired me to work at the bar right out of high school.” Her eyes grew distant and her hand trailed absently to the necklace around her neck. “She became like a mom to me.”

Zuko dropped his eyes to his coffee mug again. It was so strange. How could his mom abandon him and Azula and then come here and build a life and have such a deep connection with someone else that Katara could say Ursa had been like a mother to her? He hid his emotions well, but it hurt him.

Suddenly, Katara’s hand was on his arm, and he met her earnest gaze. “I know this must be hard for you. If there’s anything you need, just ask, okay?” She squeezed his arm before she pulled her hand away. “This community is like a family. We all loved your mom, and we’re happy to help any way we can.” 

“Thank you,” Zuko murmured. He felt like a broken record player. He cleared his throat. “Do you mind if I...take a shower real quick?”

Katara shook her head. “No, go ahead. I’ve got a couple of things to do around here before we head to the bar. I’ll give Sokka a call and see where he’s at with Haru.”

Zuko nodded in thanks before he tipped the remainder of his coffee down his throat, rinsed the mug, and headed for the bathroom, grabbing his bag as he went.

The shower helped wake him up and cleared his head, and by the time he was wiping the steam off of the mirror, Zuko felt more like himself than he had since he had gotten Katara’s phone call. 

He dressed and went back out into the living room, but Katara and Kira were nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a loud  _ crack  _ from outside of the house. Zuko shrugged into his coat and boots and stepped outside. 

He found Katara splitting wood while his mother’s dog sat obediently beside her. She’d gotten dressed and now wore a pair of jeans and a flannel ( _ she wears a lot of flannel,  _ he thought idly), her hair trailing in a fresh braid down her back. Her parka was draped over the porch rail. 

Katara didn’t see him come out and he watched as she raised the splitting maul above her head and brought it down, cleanly dividing the piece of wood on the chopping block. Only then did she look up and see him.

“Do you need some help?” Zuko offered. 

Katara smiled at him as she rested the maul against the chopping block. “I’ve only got a few pieces left.”

Zuko approached her and grabbed the splitting maul. “I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do.”

“If you insist.” Katara stepped back and spread her hands wide. “Just do me a favor and don’t chop your leg off, okay? The closest hospital is over an hour away.”

“Noted,” Zuko said as he hefted the maul. 

It was heavier than he’d expected, and he was momentarily impressed by the strength Katara must possess to be able to swing it. Zuko had never split firewood in his life, but he placed a new piece of wood on the block and imitated the motion he’d seen Katara make. The wood split evenly down the middle. 

He looked over at Katara and found her watching him with a half-smile of approval curving her lips.

“Not bad,” she said. “Mind splitting a few more?”

Zuko unzipped his jacket and placed it beside hers. “Not at all.” 

So Zuko spent the next twenty minutes chopping wood for her. She watched him for a while before she disappeared around the back of the house. She returned with a snow shovel and began clearing the walkway from her truck to the front porch. 

By the time he was done, he was sweating despite the chill in the air. Katara was just finishing up the shoveling. She put it away and then showed him where to stack the wood. When that was done, she smiled up at him.

“Thank you,” she said. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and warm up before we head out.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said. “Sure.” 

He followed her inside. They got two cups of coffee and sat down on the couch. He noticed for the first time that she didn’t seem to own a TV. 

“I left the house pretty much as I found it,” Katara said quietly. “I shut everything off and then just looked for contact information for the next of kin.” 

Zuko peered over at her. “You called my father first.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“But you still called me.” He swallowed. “Why?”

Katara shrugged. “Your mom didn’t talk about him much. And when I told him, he just...didn’t seem to care much. And your name was on the will.”

Zuko looked at her sharply. “There’s a will?”

Katara nodded slowly. “Yeah.” She met his gaze. “She left everything to you. Her house, the bar, Kira. It’s all yours.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “What about Azula? Did the will mention her?”

“No,” Katara said.

Zuko stared into his coffee. Maybe Azula had been right all these years. Why else would his mother leave everything to him and nothing to Azula? 

“We should get going,” Katara said. 

She stood up and held her hand out for his coffee mug. Zuko passed it to her and their fingers brushed. He couldn’t ignore the electrical feeling that passed through him at that touch. He met her gaze, and he could tell that she had felt it too. 

Katara went into the kitchen and Zuko put his boots and jacket on. Katara put hers on and then the two of them went out to her truck. They had to wait for the windows to defrost, and Zuko stared out the frosty window in sullen silence as they waited. 

Katara seemed to understand that he wasn’t in the mood to talk, and she sat quietly beside him, her eyes trained out her own window. When the truck was warmed up, she put the truck in reverse and backed out before she started down the road.

The cloud cover of the previous day had broken, and yellow sunlight filtered through the thick forest of snow-crusted trees. It was beautiful, really, and Zuko took a moment to appreciate it. He wondered what his uncle would say about it if he were here right now. Something wise and proverbial, no doubt. 

But Zuko had decided to take this journey alone. His mother’s absence had been an enigma in his life since he was a boy, and he’d never been able to get any sort of information about it. His father was tight-lipped about his mother, and even Azula seemed to know very little about the night that Ursa had left. His uncle knew even less. He hoped that he could find some answers here.

Katara pulled up into the empty parking lot at the bar. The parking lot was covered in a thin layer of snow that had fallen the night before. His boots crunched over it as he followed Katara inside the bar. 

It was cool and dark inside, and Zuko helped her turn the lights on after they hung their coats up in the back room. Katara went into the main room and started up the woodstove before she gestured to Zuko to follow her back into the kitchen.

It was a small space, and Zuko hung back by the door as Katara moved about efficiently, pulling eggs and bacon out of the large fridge. She turned on the grill and started prepping. 

“You don’t have to make me anything,” Zuko told her.

Katara quirked her brow at him as the corner of her lips tugged up in a half-smirk. “It’s not just for you. I’m hungry too.”

Zuko felt heat rise in his cheeks. “Oh. Right.” 

Zuko watched rather uselessly as she cooked. She’d turned the radio on and sang along softly as she worked. She had a beautiful voice. Soon she was serving up two plates of eggs, bacon, and toast. They sat down at a table in the bar. 

“I’m going to be honest with you, Zuko,” Katara said after they had eaten in semi-awkward silence for a few minutes. “Your mom...she had a lot of demons. She didn’t talk openly about them to many people, but I know that she had a troubled past, and a lot of regrets.” 

Zuko looked up at her. She was looking at him earnestly, brow slightly knit and her lips downturned just so. 

“My mom...was a complicated woman,” Zuko murmured. “She left when I was eleven. I never heard from her. Not once.”

“I’m sorry.” Katara put her hand over his and squeezed it gently. “She never told me exactly why she left...but I can tell you that she never wanted to leave you and your sister behind.”

Zuko curled his fingers around hers and looked away as tears burned unexpectedly in his eyes. He could remember it like some sort of half-dream: his mother coming into his room in the middle of the night and holding him close to her. She had whispered in his ear to never forget who he was.

But had she forgotten who  _ she  _ was? Why had she never reached out to him? He had so many questions and not enough answers.

They finished eating without saying anything else of consequence before Katara got to work on getting the bar ready to open. Zuko helped her by setting up the tables and stools. Then Sokka came in, stomping the snow off his boots. He looked at Zuko. 

“Got the road cleared for ya,” he told him. 

“Thanks,” Zuko said, feeling his throat tighten unexpectedly. 

He looked at Katara as if asking for her permission to go. She gave him a kind smile and a nod. Zuko swallowed hard.

“I guess I’ll head up there, then,” he muttered.

“If you want some company, I can leave Sokka in charge here,” Katara told him.

But Zuko shook his head as he started for the door. “No, this is something I need to do alone.”

“Do you remember how to get there?” Katara called after him worriedly. 

He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” 

“Okay.” A pause. “You can come back here whenever you’re done. For lunch or dinner or whatever.”

“Yeah, thanks.” 

Zuko shrugged into his coat and stepped outside. He unlocked his car with the button on the fob and spent ten minutes defrosting the widows and warming it up. Then he spent another five staring out at the lake. 

He could see snowmen that children had made out on the ice. The frozen water stretched outwards, almost further than he could see. He could barely make out the mountains on the other side through the cloud cover that had yet to be burned off by the weak sun. 

Zuko knew that he was procrastinating. Anxiety had coiled in his belly, winding tighter and tighter until he felt slightly nauseous. But he couldn’t put this off forever.

With a heavy sigh, Zuko shifted the Challenger into reverse and pulled out of the parking lot. He started towards his mother’s place, wondering what was waiting there for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any guesses on where this chapter title comes from? Psst, they're song lyrics :)


	3. There Is Death Upon the Vine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko begins to sort through his mother's things, where he learns some of Ursa's secrets.

Ursa’s house was situated on a small cliff above the lake. The road that led to it was narrow enough that naked, frost-encrusted branches scratched against the sides and the hood of his car, and Zuko winced each time he heard another scrape, hoping it wasn’t fucking up the paint job. But finally, the road opened up into the small, crescent-shaped clearing that the house was settled in, leading right up to the sheer drop of the cliff over the lake. Thick forest lined the other sides, giving it a secluded feel that felt faintly ominous to Zuko. 

What he suspected was his mother’s truck was parked in a ramshackle lean-to beside the house. There was firewood stacked along the inside wall of it, kept out of the elements. He could see a variety of yard and gardening tools as well. Zuko wondered if Ursa had gardened when the weather was fairer. She’d had a vegetable garden when he was a child. 

Zuko parked the Challenger behind the truck and killed the engine. For a moment, he continued to sit there, breathing shallowly as he stared blankly through the windshield. His heart was a drumbeat in his chest and his palms were slick with sweat. 

Finally, he steeled his nerves and got out of the car. Haru hadn’t plowed much further than the driveway, so Zuko had to climb over a drift of snow that was almost three feet tall before he reached the stairs, which were also covered in snow, although not as thickly. He wondered if Katara had shoveled them off when she had been here. He made it onto the landing and stood before the door. 

It was plain brown wood with a small peephole. Below that was a small wooden sign, carved into the flat shape of a house, hand-painted with the words  _ home is where your story begins _ . It was crafted in the same style as the bar sign, and Zuko wondered if his mother had gotten into woodworking after she had left.

There was an empty terra cotta flower pot on a wrought-iron stand beside the door. Katara had told him that was where Ursa kept her spare key that morning over breakfast. Zuko lifted the snow-filled flower pot and found the key beneath it. It was cold in his fingers, and it seemed to ground him, at least a little bit. 

He faced the door with bated breath, wondering what lay beyond. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff. He could turn around and go back to safety, but he would never know what it was like to jump. He would never know what was waiting at the bottom.

Zuko felt mechanical as he put the key in the lock and turned it. He heard the telling click, and then his hand was on the knob, twisting it and pushing it open. A cool draft--though not as cold as the air outside--washed over him. It smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, and it was so familiar that Zuko closed his eyes and breathed it in as his chest ached.

He pushed the door open and stepped into the shadowy darkness inside. His mother’s familiar smell was even stronger in here. 

The curtains were drawn over the windows, but sunlight crept in through the gaps, allowing Zuko to see the shapes of furniture in the living room. To his immediate right was a small open kitchen, and he easily found a light switch. 

Warm yellow light fell across the room. The kitchen was neat and organized, and it looked like it hadn’t been touched since Ursa died. There were still a few clean dishes sitting in the drying rack. 

He turned away, oddly saddened by the sight, and faced the living room. It was small and cozy, with two green couches beneath the windows. There was a large bookshelf along the far wall, loaded down with hundreds of books. On the wall beside the kitchen was a small fireplace, its hearth cold and empty now, with a TV mounted above it. 

To Zuko’s surprise, there were framed pictures on the mantle. He saw one of  _ The Drunken Turtleduck _ , his mother, so painfully alive, standing by the door and holding a sign that said  _ grand opening _ . She looked so happy. There was another beside it, and he was even more surprised to see that it was a photo of Ursa and Katara, standing in front of a Christmas tree inside of the bar. 

But, the most shocking of all, is the framed photo on the end of the mantle. It was a picture of him, Azula, and Ursa. He was maybe nine or so, and Azula just seven. It was bittersweet, a time from when Zuko thought they were a happy family. But the truth was that they were  _ never _ happy.

But as Zuko drifted around the small cabin, noticing all of his mom’s subtle touches, he wondered if she had found happiness here. If that was why she had stayed away.

He opened one of the doors in the short hallway. It was his mother’s bedroom. A patchwork quilt covered the bed, and a plush-looking dog bed was laid out beside it, although it looked like Kira had never used it. 

Zuko didn’t know what he was looking for, but he thought he would know when he did. He rifled through the bedside tables but found nothing more interesting than chapstick, tissues, and extra hair ties. The last book she’d been reading was tucked into the drawer on what he surmised was her side of the bed. It was  _ The Alchemist.  _ She was almost to the end. 

Zuko left her bedroom and tried the next door, finding a small bathroom. The door across from it was a small office/storage room of sorts. Some things he immediately recognized as things his mother had owned before she left: the kabuki-style masks from her favorite play,  _ Love Amongst the Dragons _ , which hung on the wall behind the desk, or the collection of gem-encrusted combs that she had cherished. 

He went to the desk and found a manila envelope sitting on top of it. He saw his mother’s familiar neat print in black ink at the top:  _ important documents.  _ When he pulled out the contents, he found her passport, birth certificate, life insurance policy, and the will. 

Zuko sat in the swivel chair and read over the last will and testament of Ursa Sozin. Katara was right: she had left it all to him. He was the sole beneficiary of his mother’s cabin, the bar, her truck, all of her money and assets. Everything. 

He sat with the pages in his hand, staring blankly into space as he tried to process everything. Why had she left it all to him? What about Azula?

He supposed that it didn’t really matter. Azula hated their mother and hadn’t even been phased by the news of her death, just like his father. Neither of them deserved a damn thing. And there was still more to go through. 

He skimmed through her filing cabinet and found it to be full of bills, credit card statements, old inventory sheets and invoices for the bar, and other paperwork that didn’t interest him much. 

Zuko began looking through the desk drawers. The top drawer was full of meticulously organized office supplies, as was the one below it. But the third, and deepest, drawer was locked. 

“What are you hiding, Mom?” Zuko murmured as he began to look for a key. 

But he didn’t find one anywhere, which only strengthened his determination to open the drawer. He went hunting for a screwdriver. 

It was easy enough to break the lock. Zuko opened the drawer and found himself presented with a row of black books, their spines facing upwards. Each of them were labeled by year. Zuko’s eyes skimmed the dates. They started the year she left. 

Zuko grabbed the first one and hurried to open it. He flipped to the first page and saw his mother’s handwriting, and quickly realized that it was a journal. A shiver ran down his spine when he saw the date at the top. It was the day after she had left.

_ September 19th, 2005 _

_ My life has just ended, and the first thing that I do is buy a dozen journals on discount and decide to start journaling. I haven’t done that since I was a teenager, but things are different now and maybe it’s what I need to do.  _

_ I’m in a strange hotel in a strange town, feeling like a fugitive. Though I guess it’s not far off, even if it isn’t the law that’s after me. _

_ I don’t know where I will go from here, but I know that it needs to be far, far away. I don’t know if Ozai will come after me, even though he said he wouldn’t. But I can’t chance it. I need to go somewhere and start fresh. It will be the hardest thing I have ever done.  _

_ I’m afraid. I’m afraid for the future. I’m scared for my children. Leaving them behind is the worst part in all of this. But Ozai wouldn’t let me take them. He would never let me take them. He wants them to be his perfect little soldiers, and maybe Azula will fall in line, but Zuko is a free spirit. Ozai may try to mold him, but he will always break free. _

_ I only wish that I was there to encourage him to keep his chin up, to be strong. I just hope that these years I’ve had with him is enough.  _

_ I don’t know when I’ll be back. If I’ll be back. Ozai made it perfectly clear that I never should. He didn’t need to spell it out for me to understand the threat. I suppose I could go to the police, but he’s so powerful. He can make anything go away. Including me.  _

_ So I will run, like a cowering dog with my tail tucked between my legs. I’ll pray to whoever is listening to keep my children safe, and that one day I’ll be able to return for them and take them far, far away. Where we’ll be safe from Ozai. Where we’ll be happy.  _

Zuko didn’t realize that he was crying until the first drops hit the page, making the ink bleed. He closed the journal and set it on the desk with a shaking hand. Ursa had kept a written account of her life. He almost couldn’t believe it. 

He wiped the tears from his eyes before he went back into the kitchen, rooting around for the liquor. He found it and poured himself a generous glass before he went back into the study and started to read. 

* * *

Zuko closed the last journal with an overly cautious movement before he gently placed it on top of the stack. His eyes burned, but he didn’t know if it was from all of the reading or from the tears that had been steadily leaking from his eyes all day. 

He had skimmed through all of the journals. He had read his mother’s years-long journey to this town, bouncing from place to place, working odd jobs and staying in cheap motels or hostels. She was running from his father, and she constantly wrote about how much she missed her children. 

She eventually bought an RV, and she lived in that as she traversed the country, running from her past but missing Zuko and Azula so much that it hurt. 

Seven years after she had left, she ended up here in this town, caught in a blizzard. A woman named Kanna had given her refuge, and then offered her a home. Ursa, tired of running, had agreed. She worked with Kanna at her store and saved up enough to buy the bar from a man named Bumi, who had used the space as a bait and tackle shop and wanted to retire. She had opened the bar, and hired Katara, Kanna’s granddaughter. 

Ursa spoke highly of Katara. She adored the girl as if she were her own child, and Sokka too. Zuko learned about Katara’s life: her mother passing when she was just nine years old, her father being away for long periods of time as a truck driver, her hopes and dreams and aspirations. 

She wrote about Zuko and Azula often, too. He was surprised to learn that his mother had followed their lives as well as she could, keeping up with them on social media. She had even come back a few times, when they graduated high school and then college. But she hadn’t made her presence known. 

Zuko could almost feel her pain when she wrote about them, and it killed him. 

So now he was drunk. Really drunk. He had hoped that it would numb the pain, but it only intensified his anguish. Now he felt like he was glued to the floor of his mother’s office, her written word blurring behind his eyelids as more tears threatened to fall. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die. 

Ursa had written the truth behind her abandonment in the third journal. She said that Ozai suspected her of infidelity. She believed he was reading her letters and emails and maybe even listening in on her phone calls and having her followed. So she had come up with a plan.

Ursa was still in contact with an old flame, and they corresponded frequently. She sent him an email full of lies, confessing to Zuko’s true parentage: her high school boyfriend was Zuko’s father. 

Ozai had come unglued, threatening her and scaring her. Ursa had been afraid, and she told Ozai the truth: that Zuko was his son, but that she wished he wasn’t. Ozai had promised her that he would treat Zuko as such, if that was how she truly felt. Then he had ordered her to leave, that he would kill her if she didn’t. Ursa had demanded that he let her take the children, but he refused. She left that night and never went back to him. 

His father was a monster, but his mother was to blame for the way his father treated him. But Zuko couldn’t find it in himself to hate her. 

Suddenly, the quiet in the cabin was broken by the sound of the front door opening. He heard Katara’s sweet voice call his name. 

“Zuko? Is everything okay?” 

He couldn’t find his voice. He heard her footsteps on the carpet. 

“Zuko?” 

She was coming down the hallway, and a moment later, she pushed open the half-cracked office door and saw him sitting on the floor, the nearly-drunk bottle of whiskey and his mother’s journals at his side. Zuko looked up at her through blurry, burning eyes. 

Katara hesitated in the doorway, her brow creasing and her eyes softening as she took him in. 

She said his name again. “Zuko.” It was like a prayer on her lips. 

“Go away,” he slurred desperately, his voice breaking. He needed to be alone. 

She paused, and for a moment he thought that she would leave. But then Katara came into the room and sat beside him, her back leaned up against the desk next to him. He could smell the cold on her parka. 

“What are you doing?” Zuko demanded to know. 

“You’re drunk.” She looked at him, her blue eyes sympathetic. “I can’t, in good conscience, leave you here alone.”

Kira padded in then. She let out a low whine before she came over to him and curled up on his other side, resting her large head on his lap. Zuko petted her soft fur and swallowed hard. 

“She wrote down everything,” Zuko said brokenly. “All of it. Everything she’s done since she left.  _ Why  _ she left.” Tears blurred his vision and he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He leaned his head back against the desk. “She never wanted to leave us behind.”

The tears came then, fast and hot, powerful sobs that worked their way up from his stomach before bursting out of his throat. He couldn’t recall ever crying so hard in all his life. 

Before he knew it, Katara had her arms around him. She pulled him into her embrace until his face was buried in the fur-lined hood of her jacket, breathing in the smell of snow and her perfume, which smelled like honeysuckle. He clung to her desperately, like she was a lifeline, like she was the only thing that would stop him from drowning. 

Katara stroked his hair and rubbed his back soothingly until his sobs subsided. Neither moved as he stilled, tears still running down his face. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away from her for a long while. 

“I lost my mother too,” Katara said quietly after a few minutes of silence.

“I know,” Zuko murmured. “My mom wrote about it.”

Katara rested her head on top of his. “It was so hard. So sudden, it seemed. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.” She squeezed his shoulder. “But I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, Zuko. I’m so, so sorry.”

Finally, he pulled back and looked at her. He was surprised to see that she had been crying too. 

“Did you know the truth?” Zuko asked her. “Did you know about the journals?”

Katara shook her head. “No. She never said, and I didn’t know she had those. I would have never felt comfortable going through her things. It was for your eyes only.” 

Zuko nodded slowly, still reeling from his breakdown. 

Katara stood up and offered him her hand. “Come on.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave.”

“It’s late, and you’re drunk,” Katara reminded him. “And I really don’t think you should be alone right now. Let’s go back to my house.”

Zuko stared at her extended hand, knowing that what she was saying was probably true. He was in a fucked up headspace. He didn’t need to be alone.

Finally, he put his hand in hers. It took some effort to get him on his feet, and when he wobbled precariously, Katara slipped her arm around his waist and guided him through the cabin. Kira followed them obediently as they left the cabin. 

Katara patted down his pockets and found the key so she could lock up. It was a balancing act to get him down the slick stairs without both of them falling. It had started snowing again. 

Eventually they made it to her truck. She helped him inside and he cast a look at the Challenger.

“My car,” he moaned. He was sick of leaving it behind.

“It’ll be fine,” Katara assured him before she shut his door.

Kira sat on the bench seat in the back, her head poking into the front seat, and Zuko scratched her chin affectionately. 

Ursa had gotten her as a companion, and as a guard dog when she had gone into the bar one morning and found Ozai waiting for her. He’d brought divorce papers. But it had scared her enough to get Kira and two guns, one for the bar and one for her home, and learned how to shoot them. From Sokka, no less. 

Zuko wondered why she hadn’t fled then, since Ozai knew where she was, but Zuko thought that he knew. Ursa had put down roots here. She was tired of running. And Ozai had never come back.

The drive back to Katara’s was quiet. Her headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the falling snow in a way that made Zuko’s head spin. But finally, she was pulling up outside of her house.

Zuko opened his door and tried to get out, but his legs buckled and he fell into the snow, the cold biting at his scarred cheek in a way that was oddly soothing. 

“Zuko!” Katara cried out, her boots crunching over the snow as she hurried around the truck to him.

He pushed himself into a sitting position before he struggled to stand up. Katara put her hand on his arm and helped him, her eyes wide with concern.

“Let’s get you something to eat to soak up some of that alcohol,” she told him as she started to lead him to the house.

“Not hungry,” Zuko mumbled.

“Too bad,” Katara told him sharply. “You drank almost a fifth of whiskey. You’re lucky you don’t have alcohol poisoning.”

Zuko snorted at that. 

She brought him inside and deposited him on the couch. Zuko’s head lolled against the back of it and he closed his eyes as Kira got up on the couch beside him and laid her head in his lap again. He listened as Katara turned on the lights and went into the kitchen. A moment later she was pressing a bottle of water into his hand.

“Drink,” she ordered sternly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Zuko slurred, and he heard her scoff.

He opened his eyes as he brought the bottle to his lips. Katara was at the woodstove building a fire again. He watched her in silence as he sipped the water, eyes tracing the line of her shoulders, the way her braid fell to her lower back, and the curve of her hips. 

Zuko pushed any thought in  _ that  _ vein away. He was drunk and lonely and hurting, and he was looking for comfort in all the wrong places. He didn’t know how he would ever find peace, knowing what he did now.

Zuko put the bottle down with the exaggerated care of a drunk before he slowly got to his feet. Katara looked back at him, brow furrowing and mouth opening as if to protest. His irritation flared up. He wasn’t fucking helpless, for fucks’ sake.

He held his hands up. “Just going to the bathroom. Think I can manage that one on my own? Or d’you wanna come hold my dick for me?”

Katara’s jaw dropped open before she snapped it shut, her eyes narrowing before she looked away. 

  
  


Zuko shook his head as he stumbled into the bathroom, already regretting his harsh words. Why didn’t he ever  _ think  _ before he opened his mouth? It had always gotten him into trouble. Would he ever learn? 

Once he was done, he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit, and he felt like it too. But he thought he might be sobering up a bit, at least a little. 

He left the bathroom and went back out into the living room. Katara was now in the kitchen, and he could smell toasting bread. Zuko came into the room and looked at her apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” he told her sincerely. “That was an asshole thing to say.”

Katara nodded, not quite meeting his gaze. “Yeah, it was.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “But I won’t hold it against you. You’re drunk, and you’re hurting.” 

The toast popped up, and she quickly put the slices on a plate and held it out to him. It was burnt.

“It’s black,” he pointed out the obvious.

Katara brushed past him and started for the living room, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “I know. The charcoal will help.”

They sat down on the couch. Katara stroked Kira’s fur absently while Zuko nibbled on the toast, washing it down with sips of water. When he was done, Katara took his plate to the sink. She started turning off lights before she came back to the couch.

“I’ll let you get some sleep,” she said gently.

Panic suddenly seized him and before he knew what he was doing, he said, “Don't go. Stay? Just for a little while?” 

Katara studied him for a moment before she nodded slowly. “Let me go put on something more comfortable,” she said. 

Katara disappeared down the hallway. Zuko waited for her, feeling his heart thudding loudly in his ears. He felt homesick, but it wasn’t any home he knew that he was lonely for. It was hiraëth. He wanted something comforting, and inexplicably, Katara was just that.

She came back after a few minutes, dressed in her pajamas. She stood beside him at the end of the couch, her fingertips resting on the arm as she looked down at him. 

Zuko laid down on his side, adjusting the pillow that he’d left there from the previous night, before he met her gaze and hoped to convey his feelings with one look. 

Katara seemed to understand as she grabbed the blanket off of the back of the couch and laid down with him, with her back to him. She spread the blanket over the two of them and Zuko wrapped his arm around her waist. 

“Just til I fall asleep,” he slurred quietly, his eyes already closing.

“Okay,” came her soft reply. 

He tightened his grip on her for a moment, feeling relieved and grateful and maybe a little something else. “Thank you,” he murmured into her hair. 

She put her hand over his, winding their fingers together. “Of course.” She was quiet for a moment before she added in a whisper, “I miss her.” 

A single tear leaked from his eye. “Me too.” 

Katara rolled over then, looking up at him in the dim room. Her hand came to rest on his chest, just over his heartbeat. 

“I just wish that there was more that I could do,” she admitted softly. 

Zuko put his arm around her again and gave her a half-smile. “This is more than enough. I...I really appreciate it.” He swallowed hard. “Thank you, for everything.” 

She gave him a watery smile. “Of course.” 

Katara laid her head down on his arm, burrowing just a bit closer to him until her forehead rested against his chest. He held her close, finding comfort in her soft warmth, and rested his chin on the top of her head.

Soon, he drifted off to sleep. Mercifully, he didn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is drunk Zuko a jerk and a needy baby? Yes. Am I ashamed of this shameless, self-indulgent cuddling scene? Fuck no.


	4. There Is Hope Within Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko wakes up feeling worse for wear, but he isn't sure what the cause is: his hangover, or the way he'd treated Katara last night. But as he's learning, he can't ever know quite what to expect from her.

Zuko awoke to a soft wet tongue licking at his face. He blinked his eyes open, and once again found himself facing Kira. When she saw that he was awake, she let out a soft whine. 

“Good morning to you, too,” Zuko murmured as he reached over and patted her head.

He sat up slowly, feeling his head thundering. His stomach lurched and he closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass. When it did, he looked up and noticed how quiet the house was. 

He remembered the previous night, when Katara had laid beside him while he’d fallen apart. Zuko didn’t remember her leaving him at any point, so he wondered if she’d slept beside him all night. But now she was nowhere to be seen.

Zuko got up slowly, wincing as his head pulsed, and drifted down the hallway. The bathroom door was ajar and the light was off, but he could feel the light moisture in the air and smell her soap. So she’d been up and showered for some time. 

He knocked on her bedroom door. “Katara?” But there was no response. 

Zuko wondered if she was outside. There was no telling how much snow had fallen last night, so maybe she had needed to shovel off the walkway again. He put on his coat and boots and went to go outside. Kira pranced beside him, bushy tail wagging, looking up at him expectantly.

“Need to go outside?” Zuko asked, and she yipped.

Katara hadn’t put a leash on her that he could see, but Zuko wasn’t sure that he wanted to risk the dog running off. But he couldn’t find one hanging by the door, so he gave Kira a stern look.

“No running off, okay?” he told the dog, then realized how weird he was for talking to a dog. 

Zuko shook his head before he opened the door and let Kira out. She happily ran off the porch and into the snow. Zuko stepped out after her and noticed that Katara’s truck was gone. He realized that he had no idea what time it was, and he found that his phone was dead when he checked it. But based on the position of the sun, he estimated that it was mid-morning.

He walked out into the yard and let the pale sunlight wash over him. Kira petered around a bit, sniffing the snow and the fence and the trees. Zuko closed his eyes and tried to get his head to stop pounding. 

He was still reeling from yesterday. His mother’s words echoed in his brain and he felt the ghost of his emotions on his skin like a funeral shroud. And, if he was being honest with himself, he was embarrassed. 

He’d broken down to Katara in a way he couldn’t recall ever doing with someone else before. He’d been a mess. And then he’d been a jerk to her. He cringed as he remembered what he’d said to her. He knew that he was drunk, but that was really no excuse, especially when she had never been anything but kind to him. 

Zuko heard her truck coming up the driveway long before he saw it. He and Kira waited by the porch as Katara parked and climbed out of the truck. She offered him a smirk. 

“So you’ve come back to the land of the living, huh?” she drawled, putting one hand on her hip.

Zuko rubbed the back of his neck. “Sort of. I feel like shit.” 

Katara turned back and reached for something on the passenger seat and he took a moment to enjoy the view of her ass before she turned back to him. She had a brown paper bag in her hands. 

“Is that because you’re hungover, or because you were an ass last night?” Katara quipped.

He gave her a sheepish look. “Both. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” She started towards the front door. She gave him a smirk as she brushed past him. “But that was your one get-out-of-jail-free card, so don’t think you can pull that shit again.” 

Zuko snagged the bag out of her arms. “I won’t. Promise.” 

She shook her head before they went inside, Kira trailing behind them. Katara took the bag from him and went into the kitchen. Zuko followed after her. 

“What’s all that?” Zuko asked, nodding to the bag.

“The cure for your hangover.” Katara quirked her brow at him. “Fish, ginger tea, and rice. Oh, and ibuprofen.” 

Zuko grimaced. “Fish does  _ not  _ sound appetizing.”

“Trust me. The grease helps break up the alcohol in your stomach while the rice will soak it up. The ginger tea will settle your stomach.” Katara started grabbing pots and pans. “Why don’t you go take a shower? Hot as you can stand it. It’ll help open your pores and get that crap out of your system.” 

“Thanks.” Zuko hesitated. “We’re good?”

Katara looked up at him and gave him a kind smile. “Yeah, we’re good.” 

Zuko nodded. “Thanks. I...I appreciate it.” 

He grabbed his bag and ducked into the bathroom. His muscles were stiff with tension, and the hot water helped ease it. He lingered longer than he needed to, letting the pulse of the water on his scalp and shoulders ground him. 

Finally, he emerged from the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He saw the bottle of water and two pills sitting on the counter, and wondered how Katara had slipped in so quietly to leave those for him. 

If she were anyone else, maybe he’d be irritated by the intrusion. But for some reason, he wasn’t. 

Zuko washed the pills down with the water before he got dressed. When he went back out into the main room, the aroma of fish was enough to churn his stomach. But Katara presented him his plate with a bright smile, and his returning one was automatic, and he gladly sat down to eat on the couch. 

He had to admit that it wasn’t that bad. It was actually pretty good. Even more surprising was that it actually did help his hangover. Katara sat beside him, eating a bowl of cereal rather than his fish and rice. 

“If you want, I can give you the official tour,” Katara said to him after they had eaten quietly for a few minutes. “We can even go skiing, if you want to. Have you ever been?” 

Zuko shook his head. “I haven’t been in years. But I can’t. I need to go back to my mom’s.” 

“Zuko.” Katara rested her empty bowl in her lap and looked over at him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You were a mess yesterday.” 

His anger flared. “Of course I was a mess! I’m going through my  _ dead  _ mother’s things,” Zuko snapped. 

“I know that, and I get it. I do.” She seemed to be pleading with him with her eyes. “And I also know that it’s okay to breathe. Grieving is hard. But you have to take care of yourself, too.”

Zuko stared down at his mostly-eaten plate. She didn’t get it. She could try all she wanted, but she didn’t  _ get  _ it. Ursa’s journals had painted a picture of a happy family for Katara and Sokka, with two loving parents. Her mom had died unexpectedly, and yeah, that was hard, but it wasn’t like what he was going through. Nothing was.

“It’s okay to take a break,” Katara added softly when he didn’t say anything. “You can go back out there tomorrow.” 

Zuko looked up at her sharply. “And why do you get to decide what I do and don’t do? Who said you could tell me when and how to deal with this shit?” He got to his feet, angry now. “You have  _ no  _ fucking idea, Katara.  _ None _ . My mom  _ left  _ me, because my dad  _ made  _ her! He’s so much worse than I ever thought he was. But I guess I should have known.” He barked out a bitter laugh. He gestured loosely to his face. “He did  _ this  _ to me, for fucks’ sake.” 

Katara stared openly, her eyes wide and hurt. “Zuko—”

But he wasn’t done yet. “And I’m just trying to figure out why my mom never came back for us. She  _ left  _ me and my sister there with him. And I know she was scared, but she could have tried harder. She could have fought for us.” Tears burned in his eyes again but he blinked them away furiously. “So I’m just trying to understand, Katara. I need to understand how my mom could leave us for so long and end up here in this shithole town and make a new life and leave her kids behind.” 

He exhaled, and with it, his rage deflated like a balloon losing helium. It wasn’t Katara that he was mad at. She had been nothing but generous and patient with him, a total stranger, and he had affronted her at every turn. 

He was angry with his mom and his dad, and he was even a little mad at himself. 

Katara stood up slowly and took the plate out of his hands, which he’d forgotten he was holding, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles were bloodless. She set it and her bowl down on the coffee table before she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him in for a hug. 

For a moment he stiffened, but she was so warm and comforting, that he put his arms around her and drew her closer, until he could press his scarred cheek into her hair and smell her honeysuckle perfume. She rested her head against his chest and just held him tightly, as if she could hold him together.

Hot tears leaked from his eyes. “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing all of this for me? I don’t  _ get  _ it.” 

Katara was silent for several seconds before she spoke, her voice soft. “Because I loved Ursa like she was my own mom. And I wish that things were different. If I had known how to reach you sooner, before...maybe things could have been different. I should have tried harder.”

Zuko pulled back a bit to look at her, stunned, but she kept her cheek pressed against his chest. 

“None of this was your fault,” he murmured. 

“I know,” Katara said softly. “But it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad about things. And you’re her  _ son.  _ I feel like this is what she would want.” Finally, Katara looked up at him. Her eyes were glassy. “And I’ve never been able to turn my back on people who need help. And you need it, Zuko.” 

Zuko blinked back the sudden tears and, unable to speak around the lump in his throat, nodded. It was as if he had only just now realized how much Ursa’s death pained her too. 

Katara pulled back, trailing her hands down his arms until she took his hands and squeezed gently. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle and coaxing. 

“Now,” she said. “We can take a break for today. We can spend some time in nature, reflect, clear our heads. Tomorrow is a new day. If you want to go back to her house and read through all of her journals and try to understand her, be my guest. But today is about you.” 

Any arguments died on his tongue with the feeling of her hands in his. 

“Okay,” Zuko said. 

* * *

“It’s so small,” Zuko commented twenty minutes later as Katara slowly drove through the town, pointing out the various businesses. “How can anyone live like this?”

“You’re from Seattle, right?” Katara inquired as she turned down another street. A snowplow had been through, so at least the roads were clear. 

“Yeah,” Zuko replied. He peeked over at her. “Did my mom talk about the city much?”

Katara shrugged. “Not too much. Just places she used to enjoy. Restaurants and shops and stuff.” She met his gaze. “She said there was a duck pond she used to take you and your sister to.” 

Zuko nodded. “It wasn’t far from our house. It was a nice little place. We used to feed the ducks.”

“Speaking of ducks,” Katara said. Her eyes flickered to him again and he could see the humor in them. “What’s up with turtleducks?” 

Zuko chuckled. “Mom told you about that?”

“Definitely.  _ The Drunken Turtleduck  _ is a bit eccentric.” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” It was his turn to shrug. “Honestly, I don’t even know. I was just a kid. I can’t believe she even remembered.” 

Katara looked at him again. “I think you’d be surprised. She talked about you guys a lot. She remembered plenty.” 

Zuko cleared his throat against the sudden lump that appeared. “How did you end up working at the bar?”

“I told you. She hired me right after I graduated,” Katara replied.

“Yeah, but what about college?” Zuko eyed her. “You’re what, twenty-one?”

“Twenty-four.”

“And you just want to work in a bar?” Zuko inquired. “There’s...nothing else that you want to do?”

Katara shrugged again, but rather than answer, she returned with a question of her own. “What about you? What do you do for a living?” 

“My uncle runs a very successful chain of coffeeshops,” Zuko answered, fully aware that she was deflecting and suddenly curious to know why. “I’m the vice president of the company.” 

“Ooh, That’s very lucrative for someone who’s what…” Katara appraised him briefly. “Twenty-seven?” 

“Twenty-six,” Zuko corrected. “And well, it’s mostly...nepotism. I went to college and got my MBA in business administration, and he hired me on in an administrative capacity after that.” 

“Ah.” There was something in her tone, something telling, and Zuko quickly expanded on what he’d said.

“Well, I mean, I’d worked in one of the shops since I was a teenager,” he amended. “My uncle might be the top dog, but he always spent at least one day a week working at the original tea shop. I started out there before I went to college.”

Katara nodded slowly. 

“What?” Zuko wanted to know. 

“Nothing,” Katara said. She shrugged a bit, but her mouth was set in a sour look. “That just seems...relatively easy.” 

“Hey, I still put it in the work,” Zuko protested roughly. “It’s not my fault I was given an advantage.”

“It’s not one that most people have,” Katara replied aridly. 

“I’m aware of that,” Zuko bit out. “But it’s not like I had a choice. Was I not supposed to make the most of it?”

“You’re right. Sorry.” Katara offered him a tight smile. “I guess it’s just...different where I come from. We have to work and fight every year just to stay afloat. Without the resort, this town would die out. Business at the bar booms every spring and summer, and it’s enough to keep the booze stocked and the lights on in the winter. It’s all about fighting to survive.”

“ _ Why? _ ” Zuko asked. “That’s something I’ve been trying to understand ever since I found out my mother had settled down here. What’s the point of working to live and living to work, when there are better opportunities out there?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Katara said. “For your mom, she’d lived  _ out there.  _ She knew what it was like. She decided she liked it here better.” Katara exhaled. “And for me? It’s like...imagine an animal born in captivity. It spends its entire life in one place, with the same people, and doesn’t know of the outside world.”

“Sounds sad and lonely,” Zuko commented dryly.

Katara snorted before she sobered. “Maybe to you, but it isn’t for the animal.” She glanced over at him. “Now imagine taking that animal and letting it out into the wild. Do you know what would happen?”

“It’d die, right?” Zuko asked, and she nodded. “But you’re not an animal. There’s a whole world out there, and it could be yours if you wanted it.”

Katara chuckled and shook her head. Suddenly, she pulled off the road and into a parking lot. Zuko was somehow surprised to find that they’d ended up outside of the bar. She killed the engine and leaned her head against the headrest, looking over at him with a sad, knowing smile on her lips. 

“I’m happy with where I am in my life, Zuko,” Katara said softly. “I like my job, my house, and my truck. I’m  _ comfortable _ . Maybe I won’t make a shit-ton of money or travel the world, but I have everything I could ever need right here.” 

Her expression darkened momentarily and she looked away, but not soon enough for Zuko to miss it. 

“What is it?” he asked her. 

Katara closed her eyes and let out a sigh before she looked at him again. “Your mom left you everything. What are you going to do with it?”

Oh. She was talking about the bar. That’s what she loved so much here, beyond everything else. She had been safe in the knowledge that the job would be here for as long as Ursa was, and it was easy to assume that Katara had believed that would be for a long, long time. Now she was worried, since the bar technically belonged to Zuko.

“I...don’t know yet,” Zuko answered hesitantly after a moment. He raked his hand through his hair. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Will you sell it?” Katara asked quietly. She was gripping the bottom half of the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. “Believe it or not, real estate is prime up here. Lots of uppity folks want to buy property in rural areas and turn it into something that...that doesn’t belong. It takes away from the integrity of the town. It takes away something it needs.”

“It needs a bar?” Zuko quipped lightly, hoping to turn the conversation to a lighter topic. The truth was that he didn’t know what he was going to do. He knew how to run a business, but he didn’t know if he wanted to keep his mother’s bar.

“Yeah, it does.” Katara peeked over at him. “Your mother did. I do.”

Zuko sighed. “Like I said, I don’t know what I’ll do. There’s...a lot to think about. A lot to work through, sift through.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand. I guess...I’m just worried.” She released her grip on the steering wheel and flexed her fingers. “The bar means a lot to all of us. And to me.” 

“I wish I had an answer for you,” Zuko murmured sincerely. 

Katara looked at him then, her blue eyes seeming to cut right through him. “Maybe you can answer this then,” she said softly. “What’s out there for  _ you? _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zuko blowing up at her and Katara being understanding like a pseudo-Iroh? Yes, please.


	5. From the Passenger Seat As You Are Driving Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara takes Zuko out to spend some time in nature, where he reflects on what he's going to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh here we are, halfway through already!

“When you said skiing, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind, Katara,” Zuko said gruffly as he looked down nervously at the frozen lake. 

Katara came to stand beside him on the snow-covered drop-off above the lodge. There was a genuine smile curving her lips. It seemed that her mood had lifted from its early melancholy, and Zuko was happy for that. For some reason, it pained him to see her hurting. 

“There aren’t really any good hills around here for skiing,” Katara told him as she passed him a set of skis. “It’s pretty difficult to get logging trucks up here, so the forest is mostly untouched. The resort has been trying to broker a deal to purchase some land from the state to clear it and make some ski slopes, but it hasn’t happened. Come on.”

Katara carefully climbed down the slope, her boots sinking into the snow, before she made it down onto the frozen lake. Kira followed, tail wagging as she bounded down the slope, utterly carefree in a way that only dogs could be, although it didn’t assuage Zuko’s trepidation. Katara turned back to Zuko and put the hand not holding her own set of skis on her hip, beaming another smile at him. His breath hitched in his throat at the sight. 

“You coming or not?” she called up to him. 

“Are you sure that the lake is safe?” Zuko asked her warily. “I mean, isn’t this kind of dangerous?”

Katara laughed; a light, trilling sound that was swallowed up by the heavy silence that surrounded them. “Trust me, Zuko. The ice is at least a foot thick. Lots of people ski on the lake. Or ice-skate on it. Me and Kira do this at least once a week.”

Zuko still hesitated. “Why?”

She tipped her head back in laughter again before she looked at him. “I don’t know! Because it’s fun? Because it’s relaxing? Now quit being a chicken and get down here.” 

“Fine.” Zuko huffed out a breath that crystallized in the air in front of his face before he started down the incline. When he was standing on the lake, he looked at Katara. “Happy?”

“Lighten up,” she told him with a smile. “It’ll be fun.”

“That remains to be seen,” Zuko muttered. 

They put on the skis. Zuko was still reluctant. He knew what would happen if one of them fell through the ice, and he wasn’t eager to possibly encounter that. But Katara seemed confident, and he trusted her, so he followed her as she started to head deeper across the lake. 

It was easier than Zuko thought. There was freshly-fallen snow from the previous night coating the ice, which created enough traction for the skis to not slip across the frozen surface. Katara moved gracefully as Kira ventured off ahead, sniffing at the ground with her tail wagging. Zuko grew more confident and pulled level with Katara.

“It’s not so bad,” Zuko admitted. 

She smirked. “I told you so.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Zuko took a moment to observe their surroundings. The sky above was a pure shade of blue; the sun was a pale disk sinking slowly towards the western horizon. Across the lake, he could barely make out the pine trees that covered the distant mountains. The lake itself stretched out towards the northwest and southeast like a boomerang, almost bigger than he could comprehend.

“It must be beautiful here in the summer,” Zuko remarked thoughtfully.

“It is,” Katara told him. She smiled at him again. “Maybe you can come down sometime.”

The corner of his lips tugged up in response. “Yeah, maybe.” 

They kept going until they got closer to the middle, although they were still nowhere close. The town was a distant cluster of buildings behind them. Thankfully, the lake stayed solid beneath them. Soon, Zuko’s cheeks stung from the cold and his legs burned from the exertion of skiing. His breath was small puffs of white in the chilly air. 

It was quiet out on the lake. He could hear the wind blowing past his ears, his and Katara’s ragged breathing, and Kira’s panting, but nothing else.

“Whoa,” was all he could say as he took it in.

Katara turned until she faced him, a soft smile curving her lips. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

Zuko breathed in deeply, feeling oddly at peace despite everything as he nodded. “Yeah.” He met her gaze. “Thank you for this. I needed it.”

The soft smile remained on her lips. “I know.” 

Katara transferred her stick to her other hand and shuffled closer to him until their frosty breath commingled in the air between them. The sunlight sparkled in her eyes and almost seemed to blind him. She reached out with her gloved hand and rested it on his arm. 

“I know you have a lot of questions. A lot to think about.” She swallowed hard. “But I just want you to know...that your mom was happy here. Despite everything, she found comfort in this place. And I won’t ask you for anything more because it’s not my place but...will you consider keeping the bar?” 

Zuko looked down at her hand before he met her earnest gaze. He swallowed hard. “You love it just as much as she did, don’t you?”

“I do.” Katara smiled wanly. “It reminds me of her but...I also have a purpose. It’s so much more than just a bar.” She cast her eyes back towards the town. “It’s a place where people can go to eat good food and spend time with people they care about. It brings the community together.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s hard to remember what it was like before the bar was here.” 

Zuko nodded as he digested her words. He hadn’t made any decisions yet. He’d need to talk to his uncle and his lawyer and figure out the logistics of it all. But maybe he could keep the bar. He could leave Katara in charge of it. And maybe it would give him a reason to come back. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he murmured. 

Her face lit up and suddenly she threw her arms around him. She pressed her cheek against his and Zuko put his arms around her, feeling the cool of her skin against his own numb cheek. 

“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

Katara pulled back, and for a moment they stood there, with only breathing room between them as the weak sun shone down on them. He watched her eyes flicker to his lips before she dropped her gaze and she stepped back, clearing her throat.

“We should get back,” she said quietly. She gestured loosely towards the mountains. “Looks like we’ve got another snowstorm coming in.” 

Zuko looked up and saw thick gray clouds rolling over the mountains across the lake. He swallowed, his heart thundering in his chest. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They started back towards town. His heart finally stopped its dance in his chest, but he couldn’t push the look in her eyes from his mind. What had she been thinking? Did she want to kiss him? Zuko realized with startling clarity that he wanted to kiss her. 

But would it be wrong? He couldn’t stay. His life wasn’t here, in this town. It was in Seattle, working with his uncle. He would take care of his business here, and then he would leave. He couldn’t start something with Katara that would lead nowhere. 

Neither of them deserved the hurt. 

* * *

They had dinner at the bar. Katara introduced him to Jin, the other bartender who worked there, before they retreated to a table near the back. They ate chicken fried steak—a new food for him, and one he quite enjoyed—with mashed potatoes and gravy. They talked about anything that didn’t have to do with his mother’s journals.

Zuko found himself opening up about his life—his uncle, his job, the things he liked to do in his spare time. He and Katara fell into an easy rhythm, and soon they were laughing and talking like they were old friends instead of people who had only met a few days ago. Somehow, Zuko knew that leaving would be harder than he thought it would be. 

When they got back into the truck, Katara hesitated with the keys in her hand. Snow had started to fall, fat and lazy flakes that fell slowly, but more thickly than it had the night before, and the temperature had dropped considerably. 

“I can take you to your mom’s, if you want,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to stay at my place again.” 

Zuko mulled that over. He found the thought of sleeping in his mother’s empty house more unsettling than another night on Katara’s couch.

“No, it’s okay,” Zuko said. He glanced over at her. “I’m fine crashing at your place. If you don’t mind.”

Her smile almost looked relieved. “No, I don’t mind.”

So with Kira sitting between them, Katara drove them back to her house. Zuko helped her bring in some more firewood, and soon Katara had the woodstove crackling. They each changed into their pajamas, but Katara hesitated instead of bidding him goodnight.

“It’s still kind of early,” she said uncertainly. Her fingers trailed down the length of her braid, winding the end around one finger before she let it fall. “Did you...maybe want to watch a movie or something?”

Zuko cast a look around the living room. “I don’t see a TV anywhere.”

Katara snorted as her cheeks flushed with pink. “I have a laptop. I don’t watch a lot of TV, so I never bought one.” 

Zuko swallowed, realizing that watching a movie on a laptop meant being in close proximity to her, and that he was absolutely not adverse to that idea. In fact, it sounded great. Even if it couldn’t go any further. Even if he couldn’t stay.

“Yeah,” Zuko said. “We can watch a movie.” 

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Katara disappeared into her bedroom. She returned a few minutes later with a laptop and a stack of DVDs in her arms. She set all of it on the coffee table before she sat down beside him on the couch, spreading the DVDs out for him to see.

“I didn’t know what you like, so I just picked a little bit of everything,” Katara told him a bit sheepishly.

Zuko leaned closer to her to read the titles, his arm pressing against hers. Most of the movies he was familiar with even if he hadn’t seen them. A lot of them were dramas or comedies, but there were a few action and rom-coms sprinkled in. He saw a familiar case.

“I haven’t seen that since I was a kid,” Zuko remarked as he grabbed the DVD. 

“ _ Hook  _ is a favorite of mine,” Katara told him with a smile. “Do you want to watch it?” 

Zuko returned it. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

So he settled back on the couch as Katara booted up the laptop and put the DVD in the disc drive. She pulled the throw blanket off of the back of the couch and spread it over their laps before she sat back, resting the laptop on her thighs at an angle so they could both see the screen. She started the movie as Kira climbed up on the other side of her and curled up next to her. 

Katara petted the dog absently as the opening scenes began to play. Zuko observed this from the corner of his eye. According to his mom’s will, Kira belonged to him, too. But he thought about his busy lifestyle. He was barely home, and he wasn’t much of a fan of dogs. And, if he was being honest, it was clear that Katara and Kira had bonded. He couldn’t take that from her. He decided then that he would leave Kira with Katara.

He snuck surreptitious looks at Katara while they watched the movie. Her hair was still styled in her usual braid and her face was free of makeup. Her hands were folded over her flat stomach and her legs were resting on the coffee table. He could feel her body heat everywhere they were touching: their arms, hips, and thighs. 

He was hyper-aware of each breath she took, each subtle movement she made. His attraction pooled in his belly and pulsed in his veins. It took all of his self-control to keep his breathing measured so that she didn’t notice. 

_ Can’t do it, bud,  _ he thought to himself.  _ Can’t get involved with her.  _

But that carnal part of his brain, the one that led to impulsive behavior and questionable decision-making, the part that Azula had always said was only possessed by men, whispered in his head,  _ what’s the harm?  _

And that train of thought led to him nonchalantly stretching his arm over the back of the couch before he could convince himself that it was a bad idea. Katara didn’t react outwardly, but within five minutes, she had tucked herself against his side and he wrapped his hand around her shoulders. 

He thought about how she had looked earlier, when they were out on the lake. Was it possible that she felt the attraction too? 

As the end credits were rolling, neither of them moved. Zuko chanced to look at her, and Katara met his gaze from beneath her eyelashes.

“Last night,” he said slowly. “I didn’t hear you leave.”

He didn’t imagine the blush that rose in her cheeks as she looked away. “That’s because I didn’t. I fell asleep too.”

Zuko swallowed. “Oh.” 

Katara closed the laptop and reached forward to set it on the coffee table, but she sank back into his side. She was looking down at her hands, picking at her cuticles.

“How long do you think you’ll stay in town?” Katara asked softly. 

Zuko let out a shallow breath. The initial plan had been five days. He was three days deep, and he knew that he wasn’t ready to go. What he  _ didn’t  _ know was how much of his reluctance to leave had to do with Katara. And that could be a little dangerous. 

“I’m not sure,” he answered quietly. “There are...things I need to get in order. Things to sort out.” He raked the hand not wrapped around her shoulders through his hair. “Maybe a week. Maybe a little less.”

Katara nodded as she digested that. “Okay.” She looked up at him. “I’ll take you out to your mom’s in the morning.”

“Thanks,” Zuko said. He looked out the window, where he could see the snow still falling in the porch light. “You think the snow will let up?”

“Maybe.” She leaned closer to him to peer out the window as well. “It’s hard to say. But I’ll get you out there, one way or another.” 

Zuko nodded slowly. “I should probably start going through her things. Packing stuff up, seeing what I need to keep and what I can give away.”

“I can give you some boxes from the bar,” Katara offered. “We can pick them up before I take you out there.”

“That would be great,” Zuko said sincerely.

Katara let out a breath. “I should probably head to bed.” But it sounded like she didn’t want to go. 

“Yeah, me too,” Zuko said reluctantly. 

Slowly, Katara extricated herself from him. “I guess I better let Kira out again.” She started towards the door, whistling for the dog.

Zuko stood up. “I think I’ll join you. I haven’t really had a chance to enjoy the snow since I got up here.” 

They put on their boots and coats and stepped out into the quiet night, watching the snow come down. It was utterly silent except for the occasional call of a bird in the trees. 

Zuko was used to the rains of Seattle. Here, the snow was peaceful. He felt content in the quiet snowfall in a way that he wasn’t sure that he had ever felt before. There was a certain disconnect from the outside world. Maybe that was what had drawn his mother into this place. 

They went back inside. Zuko went to the couch and laid out his blankets as Katara refilled the dog water bowl and took care of her laptop and the DVDs. When she came back from her bedroom, she went into the kitchen and got a bottle of water. She paused halfway between the living room and the hallway.

She smiled at him. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Zuko said, wondering what she might do if he kissed her right now, fully aware of why he shouldn’t. “Sleep well.”

“You too.” She disappeared down the dark hallway, Kira following loyally behind her.

Zuko laid down and tucked his hand behind his head, staring up at the ceiling for a while, lost in thought. 

He was thinking about his mother and her journals, and he was thinking about his father and what he’d made his mother do. He was thinking about what he would do with his mother’s belongings and her cabin and the bar. 

But he was also thinking of Katara, with her snowstorm eyes and gentle smile and soft touch. Somehow, she was anchoring him to this place. He didn’t want to go without first tasting her, but he knew that if he did that, he might not ever want to leave. 

But what was waiting for him out there? Life was  _ okay,  _ but it wasn’t  _ great.  _ Zuko had long given up on happiness. It had seemed that wasn’t in the cards for him. His life was work, but didn’t he want  _ more?  _ His relationships all failed;  _ why?  _ He could never quite figure that out. 

And here, in this town in the middle of nowhere, maybe life could have meaning. It had certainly held meaning for his mother. Why couldn’t it do the same for him?

Those were the thoughts warring in his mind when he finally fell asleep. When he did, he dreamt of his mother, with her honey eyes and warm smile, and the words she had spoken echoed in his head. 

_ Never forget who you are. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zutara crumbs? Zutara crumbs.


	6. And Together There, In A Shroud of Frost and Mountain Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara drops Zuko off at Ursa's cabin and he begins the long process of going through and packing up her things. He'd be lying if he said that it isn't a bit of a relief when Katara shows up, but things taken an unexpected turn when they find themselves stranded there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I didn't update last night. I've been sick for the last couple of days and I just wasn't feeling up to doing anything but sleeping last night. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! 
> 
> (Is the chapter title a hint to what is coming? If you know what song it comes from...it might be.)

Zuko woke up to someone gently shaking his shoulder and saying his name. 

He blinked drowsily and opened his eyes. He saw Katara leaning over him, her long hair, still damp from a shower, hanging down and trailing against his arm and chest. Her eyes were bright in her fresh face and he couldn’t believe how pretty she looked.

“Morning,” he murmured sleepily, an involuntary smile curving his lips.

“Good morning,” Katara quipped back, her teeth flashing in a white smile before she leaned back. “We got a lot of snow last night. We’ll need to do a bit of shoveling and unburying the truck before we can get to your mom’s.”

“Oh, okay.” 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and scrubbed his hand down his face. Katara had moved into the kitchen, where she had already brewed a pot of coffee, and poured herself a cup. Zuko went into the bathroom and relieved his bladder before he joined her in the kitchen. She passed him an empty mug and he filled it, the warm smell of coffee waking him up.

Katara was leaning against the opposite counter, looking out the window above the sink. “The snow hasn’t quit falling. It looks like we’re getting a bit of a storm.” 

Zuko joined her against the counter and followed her gaze. Outside, the sky was a flat gray, the cloud cover so thick that it was impossible to discern one cloud from the next. Fat snowflakes fell faster and heavier than before. 

“Can we get into town? And to my mom’s?” Zuko asked, a bit worriedly. 

Katara nodded before she took another drink of her coffee. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Her eyes flickered to him. “But it probably won’t be safe for you to try to drive your car from Ursa’s, even if you have chains. I can pick you up later, if you didn’t want to stay up there.”

“Yeah, okay.” Zuko glanced over at her. “I should get dressed. I want to get started at my mom’s.” 

He set his half-drunk cup of coffee down on the counter and went to go get dressed. When he came back, Katara and Kira were gone. Zuko put on his boots and coat and grabbed the beanie out of his bag, pulling it on over his head before he stepped outside. 

The air was cold and heavy with moisture and he shivered as he stepped off of the porch. Zuko grabbed the snow shovel Katara had left leaning against the rails for him and went to join her. Katara was shoveling the snow out from behind her truck, with Kira not-so-helpfully digging beside her. Zuko stood beside her, waiting for instruction.

“We just need to create an incline. Once we get the truck on the snow, the chains will do the rest of the work for us. But we got…” Katara cocked her head to the side. “Looks like about five fresh inches last night, and it’s half-frozen.”

“Fun,” Zuko muttered as he got to work, imitating what Katara had done. He looked up at her. “And how, exactly, do you stand to live like this every year?”

“Well, I’d take this over the never-ending rain,” Katara replied, a tad breathlessly from the exertion. “At least it only snows three or so months out of the year. You get what, five or six months of rainfall?”

Zuko chuckled. “About that, yeah. With some nice weather sprinkled in, although that’s usually ruined by the construction.”

“Exactly. And living in the  _ city?  _ All those huge skyscrapers, all the people, the pollution…”

Zuko looked up at her, a lopsided smile on his lips. “Is there a point to this little rant against the city, Katara?”

She met his smile with a grin of her own. “Only that the city sucks and nothing could ever convince me to give up all of this.” Katara straightened up and gestured to the woods that surrounded her house. “It’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful, yes, but impractical,” Zuko returned. “Everything is so far away. There isn’t much to do. Low job prospects, not a lot of exposure to other cultures…”

“I see your point, but I can travel to places that have all of that,” Katara retorted. 

He smirked at her. “And I can travel to places like this.” 

She smiled back at him as they reached their impasse. “Fair enough.”

At last, Katara said they were done. They put the snow shovels away in the small shed behind the house before they loaded up in the truck with Kira. 

“On the off chance that I can’t get back up here tonight,” Katara said in explanation when he gave her a curious look. 

They drove carefully into town. The roads hadn’t been plowed since the fresh snow had fallen, and despite the stormy weather, Zuko thought that the town had a nice, wintery feel about it. There seemed to be very few people out and about, and that only contributed to the aesthetic. 

Katara pulled around to the back of the bar and parked in the narrow alley above the lake. Leaving Kira in the truck, she and Zuko got out. Katara unlocked the back door and the two of them went inside. 

Zuko expected her to get the boxes right away, but to his surprise, Katara went into the kitchen and began to pull the fixings for a roast beef sandwich from the fridge. 

“What are you doing?” Zuko asked her.

“I’m making you lunch,” she replied as though it were obvious. “I felt bad that I didn’t even think about it the other day, and I don’t want you to go hungry.”

He was pleasantly warmed by her consideration, and with a flush in his cheeks, he said, “Oh, thanks. You don’t have to—”

“No, but I  _ want  _ to.” Katara looked over her shoulder at him, a curious furrow in her brows. “Do people not just do nice things just because where you come from?” 

Zuko swallowed hard as he thought about his father and sister. They never did anything nice unless they benefited in some way, and usually then it was nuanced kindness. 

“No, not really,” Zuko said honestly after a moment. 

Katara shook her head a bit as she went back to the task at hand. “Well, around here, we rely on each other’s kindness, like me making sure you’ve got a place to sleep or food to eat, or Haru plowing the road for you, or Doc towing your car back to town. It’s part of how we survive.” 

Zuko rubbed his neck as he thought about it. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

Katara finished making the sandwich and wrapped it in wax paper before she bagged it. Then she went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a large Tupperware full of soup. She ladled some into a styrofoam cup and put a lid on it. 

“For dinner, in case you’re staying or if I can’t come and get you until later,” she explained. She beamed a smile at him. “Let’s go get those boxes.” 

Zuko followed Katara into a back room that served as dry storage. There were plenty of boxes already broken down, and Katara even found some packing tape. They hauled several armloads out to the truck before they climbed back inside and started to drive out to Ursa’s. 

Katara had turned the radio on to a news channel, and they listened to the weather forecast. There was no sign that the snow would be letting up any time soon, and it was predicted that another eight inches would fall by tomorrow morning. Katara didn’t seem especially worried about it, so Zuko didn’t fret over it either.

It was a bit of a relief when they got to Ursa’s and he saw his Challenger sitting there unharmed, albeit covered in a half a foot of snow. Nothing else had changed since his last visit.

He and Katara brought the boxes and food inside. She showed him how to start a fire in the fireplace, and soon a cracking blaze was warming up the small cabin. 

Katara hesitated by the door with her hands on her slender waist, casting her eyes across the cabin. Then her gaze settled on him, and she smiled softly at him. 

“I’m out of here, then,” she said with some finality. “Call me if you need anything?” Katara said it as more of a question, and Zuko nodded, hoping the smile he gave her was reassuring. 

Then, innocently enough, Katara stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his unmarked cheek. Zuko froze for a moment, taken aback by the unexpected gesture. 

She was smiling again as she pulled back. “Bye, Zuko.”

He swallowed his surprise. “Bye, Katara.”

She and Kira left, and it took Zuko several moments to become unrooted from where he was standing. 

Was she willing to take a chance on whatever this was, however brief it may be? Could he be so selfish as to allow whatever this might be to unfold?

In the quiet, lonely solitude of the cabin, he thought that he just might be.

* * *

Zuko knew that if he started with the journals, they would suck him in and not let him free until he’d read them all. So after putting some of the boxes together, he decided that he would start in the kitchen. 

It was evident that all Katara had done was throw out the food in the refrigerator, but everything in the freezer hadn’t been touched. He texted Katara, hating the thought of just throwing it away, and asked if she had any recommendations. She told him that she was sure Sokka would have some use for it and she would ask, and all of the boxed and canned goods could be donated to the local food pantry. 

From there, he went about packing up the pots and pans and dishes. His apartment was fully furnished and he had no need for them, but surely Katara would have an idea. He texted her to ask, and she replied that she would come up with something. 

It took him most of the morning to get the kitchen packed up, and when he was done he took a break to eat half of the sandwich Katara had made for him. When that was done, he started in on the living room. 

This room would take more time to sort through, simply for all of the books and knick-knacks on the shelves, the framed pictures on the walls, and the various crafts and hobbies his mother had apparently picked up. 

A small chest by the couch revealed spools of yarn and knitting needles. There was a small wooden cart of drawers loaded with paints and brushes tucked into one corner. He found pyrography tools, jewelry-making supplies, and more. It seemed that whatever time she did not devote to the bar, Ursa had spent it learning new crafts. 

Looking at her things had a wave of melancholy washing over him. These items had been his mother’s life. Her hands had touched them, molded them, used them. And now she would never knit another scarf, or paint another picture, ever again. 

Those realizations drove another unavoidable fact home: Zuko would never see her again, or speak to her. He would never hear the explanation of why she had left from her own lips rather than her written word on paper. 

Zuko dropped onto the couch after two more hours of going through her things, rubbing his temple wearily against the headache he could feel growing there. He wished he could just throw all of her things away so he wouldn’t have to look at them anymore. Maybe that would have been easier.

But even more than that, he wished that he wasn’t alone in this house. It almost felt like her ghost was here with him, watching him. That feeling left him restless and unsettled, and he didn’t much care for it.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, even heavier now. The wind howled against the windowpanes and shook the snow-heavy trees. The lake was an indiscernible blot through the window. He felt completely and implicitly alone out here, except for his mother’s ghost.

Zuko debated on calling Katara to come and pick him up early, but ultimately he decided against it. He wanted to get through this, and putting it off any longer would only prolong the hurt. There were still the journals to contend with, after all, and he already had a taste of how painful those were to deal with. 

Zuko stood up and decided to give the bedroom a try, but he quickly backed out of that venture when he opened the dresser and came across his mother’s underwear drawer, where he immediately decided that he was absolutely unprepared for that. 

So then Zuko decided to go into the office, not to read the journals, but to sort through Ursa’s files. But he soon found himself feeling overwhelmed while looking at all of the paperwork regarding the bar. 

He did take some time to skim the numbers over. It seemed that Ursa did not own the bar outright: she still owed nearly thirty thousand dollars against the mortgage. Everything else looked good though. His mom evidently knew how to run a business efficiently, and Zuko knew that he was capable of doing the same.

Zuko glanced down at Ursa’s journals, which still sat on the floor where he had left them beside the mostly-drunk whiskey bottle. He stooped and picked up all of the journals before he set them carefully on the desk, almost reverent in his handling of them. These journals were Ursa’s gospel. 

He carried the whiskey bottle back out into the main room and resigned himself to keep plugging away at the living room. 

Zuko had been working for an hour or so when he heard the roar of a truck engine coming down the road. He put down the books he was holding and crossed to the window to peek through the curtains. He was pleasantly surprised when he saw Katara’s truck coming around the curve in the road. 

Pulling on his coat and stuffing his feet into his boots, he went to the door and stepped out onto the front porch. He watched as Katara pulled up beside his car. A moment later, she and Kira were piling out.

“What are you doing here?” Zuko called down to her as she and Kira slogged across the ever-rising snow. 

Katara beamed a smile up at him. “Well, given all of your texts, it sort of seemed like you might need some help.” 

Zuko felt the corner of his lips pull up into a half-smile as he shook his head in disbelief. She was as transparent as a sheet of glass. She didn’t have to say it for Zuko to know that she had just wanted to come back. 

“Yeah, maybe a bit,” Zuko said to humor her. “She has all this paperwork for the bar, and I’m really not sure what to do with it.”

“Ursa was a meticulous organizer.” Katara and Kira finally made it onto the porch, now covered in snow. “I’m sure I can help you out.”

“You weren’t needed at the bar?” Zuko inquired as they stepped inside. 

“Surprisingly, there were no customers,” she replied as she slipped out of her coat and boots and hung her parka up beside the door. “So I closed down early.”

“Ah.” 

Katara turned towards him and he saw all of the snowflakes in her hair that hadn’t melted yet, shimmering on her dark braid like pearls. Before he knew what he was doing, Zuko reached up and ran his hand down her hair, smoothing out the flakes as he trailed his fingers down her braid. 

Then he met her gaze and saw her watching him, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks. He cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” he said, a bit sheepishly. 

Katara smiled. “You’re fine.” She turned back towards the cabin and let out a breath. “Wow.”

The living room and kitchen were a mess of boxes and things that had been taken from their places as Zuko contemplated what he was going to do with them. It looked nothing like what it had that morning when Katara left. 

“It’s so sad,” Katara said softly. “All of her things…” 

She pressed a hand to her mouth and Zuko put his hand on her shoulder. He could see the tears brimming in her eyes, and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her towards him. Katara curled into his side and pressed her face to his shoulder as sudden sobs shook her shoulders. 

Zuko rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes. It felt right to have her in his arms, more than it had any right to. And she had offered him comfort more than once since he arrived. He felt that it was only right to return the favor. She had held him together; him, a stranger. Why shouldn’t he do the same for her?

After a few minutes, Katara composed herself enough to pull back as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, but she didn’t step out of Zuko’s hold. She released a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice still thick. “It’s just…I don’t think it really hit me until now.” She bit her trembling lip as she looked around the cabin again. “I loved her so much. I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

“I know how it feels,” Zuko murmured. 

He surprised himself by kissing her temple gently. Katara glanced up at him, her shiny eyes wide, as if she was surprised by the gesture too. But she offered him a watery smile.

“Why don’t you show me that paperwork?” she asked gently.

Zuko nodded as he let his arm drop. “Yeah.” 

He took her into the office. The two of them spent some time sifting through all of Ursa’s files. Katara organized it into neat piles on the floor, and Zuko was able to follow along with it. 

“Your mom took good care of the bar,” Katara commented. “She never missed a payment, always kept track of inventory…”

“I’m sure you helped her a lot,” Zuko said.

Katara smiled forlornly, running her fingers across a stack of invoices. “Yeah, I did.” 

“And you’ve been managing it since she passed,” Zuko remarked.

Katara looked up at him. “Yeah, I guess I have.” 

Zuko nodded thoughtfully for a moment. Then he took a shallow breath. “Katara, I’d like to give you the bar.” 

She blinked, mouth dropping open. “I’m sorry,  _ what? _ ”

“I want to give you the bar,” he repeated.

Katara swallowed visibly. “Yeah, I heard you. But...why?”

He shrugged, glancing down at all the paperwork. “Entrepreneurship was never really my passion. I like the work I do, but I don’t think I’m ready to take on my own business.” He met her gaze. “But you are.”

Katara shook her head slowly, disbelieving. Then she looked up at him again.

“I don’t think I can swing the mortgage payments,” she admitted. “Not like Ursa did. The bar’s been dry since she passed. It’ll take time to bounce back.”

“You don’t have to worry about the mortgage,” Zuko told her quietly. “I’m going to pay it off in full, and then I’m going to transfer ownership to you.”

She was staring at him again, completely in shock. Zuko could see the tears welling up in her eyes again, and he hoped that he hadn’t made a mistake. Is this not what she wanted? Maybe she had just expected to  _ run _ the bar while he owned it, but wasn’t this better?

“Zuko, I…” Katara shook her head again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Zuko told her softly. He reached across the space between them and touched the back of her hand. “You deserve the bar, and I...I really don't have a need for it. You do. It’s your life, your passion.” 

A single tear slid down her cheek before she wiped it away. Then Katara crawled across the space between them and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing hard. Zuko put his arms around her waist and hugged her back, breathing in her honeysuckle perfume.

“Thank you,” Katara whispered in his ear.

She pulled back slightly, sinking onto her knees. But her arms remained around him, her fingertips tickling the hair on the back of his neck. Zuko studied her face briefly, admiring its beauty and sincerity. He didn’t think he’d ever met someone as beautiful as her, but it wasn’t just her appearance.  _ She  _ was beauty, irrevocably and more purely than anyone he had ever met.

Her eyes dropped to his lips. Then she leaned in. He closed his eyes and met her halfway.

Her lips were soft against his. She tasted sweet and she felt warm and comforting. For a brief moment, Zuko allowed his fingers to dig into the warm skin at the small of her back as he kissed her back. But then he withdrew.

“Katara,” he rasped, a bit breathlessly. 

She sank back onto her knees, letting her hands fall into her lap. Her cheeks were flushed and she wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No!” Zuko reached for her before he thought the better of it. “Don’t be sorry, Katara. Agni, have I wanted to kiss you too.”

Her lips quirked downwards as she studied him. “Then what is it?” 

“I’m leaving,” Zuko said quietly as he lowered his gaze. “I can’t stay here. And I can’t...I won’t hurt you by being with you only to leave. I just can’t do that.”

Katara nodded. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “I understand.” Finally, she looked up at him. She forced out a smile. “Well, I think we’ve gotten most of the paperwork dealt with. Is there anything else you need help with?”

Zuko rubbed his neck as he felt heat rise in his cheeks. “Can I ask you for one favor?”

“Of course,” Katara said sincerely. “Anything.” 

“Can you pack up her bedroom?” Zuko asked. “That’s a...private place, and I think there might be things a son shouldn’t see.”

Katara let out a noise of understanding before she rose and left the office. 

Zuko stayed for a few more minutes, willing his heart to return to its normal rhythm in his chest. Then he went back out into the main room and found the half-empty bottle of whiskey. He took a pull right off the bottle before he saw Kira looking up at him from where she lay near the fireplace.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured so that Katara wouldn’t hear. “I can’t stay.” 

So he occupied himself by working on packing up the books while Katara dealt with his mother’s bedroom. Outside, darkness fell as the snow continued to come down. 

Finally, Katara emerged from the bedroom. Her cheeks were pallid and her eyes were a bit red, as if she’d been crying again. Zuko didn’t know which would be worse: that he was the cause, or that going through Ursa’s things had been hard for her. 

“I got that taken care of,” she said quietly. She offered him a weak smile. “I put some things I thought you might want into a box\\. I left it on the bed.”

“Thank you,” Zuko told her sincerely. 

Katara opened her mouth as if to say more, but suddenly a loud  _ crack  _ shattered the muffled atmosphere. The lights in the cabin flickered and then went out. The orange glow of the fireplace was the only light. 

“What the hell was that?” Zuko demanded to know, startled.

Katara moved towards the window, frowning. “It sounded like a tree falling. Which is possible, given the heavy snow and the wind.” Dissatisfied by what she could see through the window, Katara started for the door. “I’ll go check it out.”

“I’ll go with you,” Zuko said. “I think there’s a flashlight in one of these boxes.” 

They spent a few minutes searching before they came up with two flashlights. They donned their coats and boots before they stepped out into the cold night. Zuko and Katara shined their flashlights across the clearing, and it didn’t take long to spot the problem.

“Shit,” Katara said. 

“Fuck,” Zuko agreed. 

A large tree had fallen at the mouth of the road, cutting off their access to the rest of the town. They were stuck out here. 

“What do we do?” Zuko asked, deferring to her.

Katara shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do tonight. The storm’s too bad for anyone to make it up here right now. We’ll either need a chainsaw or a pulley to get that tree out of the way.” 

“Shit,” Zuko muttered. 

Katara huffed out a breath as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, at least there’s food and firewood. We won’t starve or freeze.”

“True,” Zuko said. “Let’s go back inside.” 

They went back into the cabin. After shedding their parkas and boots, Katara checked the fire. Zuko went to the fridge and pulled out the container of soup Katara had given him and the half a sandwich he had left from lunch.

“I guess we get cold soup then,” he remarked dryly.

Katara let out a chuckle before she gestured to the bookshelf. “At least we can read. We won’t die of boredom.” She took the soup from him and set it near the fire. “I guess we can let it warm up a bit.”

She went to the bookshelf and spent a few minutes looking at the titles of the remaining books he hadn’t packed. Once she found one, she crossed the room and curled up on the couch. Zuko joined her after he fetched the bottle of whiskey and his own book. 

“This’ll help keep us warm,” he remarked when she arched her brow at him. He took a sip before he passed it to her.

“I’ll call Sokka in the morning,” Katara said after she took a nip of the whiskey. 

“Why not tonight?” Zuko inquired as he took the bottle back.

She snorted. “Because knowing my brother, he’ll come up with some half-cocked plan to ‘rescue’ us and end up getting stuck here with us.”

“And you don’t want him here, why?” Zuko drawled, knowing that he was probably treading dangerous waters. 

She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. He could see her emotions spelled out clearly in her eyes and he swallowed as heat plunged to his groin.

“No need for anyone else to be stuck,” she said coyly. 

He could accept that answer. He had the whole night to get the truth out of her. 

“Okay,” he said. 

They settled in for a long, quiet night. 


	7. I Held You Closer Than Anyone Could Ever Guess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko and Katara spend the night stranded at Ursa's cabin where they reach a mutual understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters until we're done. :,) :,)

[This song is the soundtrack to this chapter. I know it's not Death Cab, which is the running theme for this fic, but here it is: ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGwo6wmrwBo)

The night wore on without a sign of the snow letting up. The fire roared in the hearth and was the only sound except for their gentle breathing and the rustle of them occasionally turning the page of their books.

Katara had turned until her back was pressed against the arm of the couch with her knees bent in front of her. She held the book she had chosen in her lap. Zuko remained on his end of the couch, reading a book of his own choosing, but he couldn’t help the surreptitious glances that he threw in her direction.

She was a vibrant reader, one who felt everything that was happening in the story. He could see the way her expression changed to reflect her shock, irritation, and happiness. She giggled and gasped and leaned closer to the page, and he was having a better time watching her than reading himself. 

Eventually she stretched her legs across the couch cushions between them until her toes brushed against his thigh, just a light touch that still managed to make his blood sing in his veins. 

After a few minutes, he dared to rest his hand on her ankle, safely over the blanket. He caught the way that she looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes and felt his heart leap up into his throat. 

The tension between them was so palpable that he could almost feel it, like the electric charge in the air before lightning struck. If it intensified any more, Zuko thought that they might ignite.

After a few hours, they took a break from reading to eat dinner. Apparently Ursa had always eaten in the living room, as there wasn't a dinner table to be found. Katara spread a blanket out on the floor in front of the hearth while Zuko rummaged for spoons and bowls and a knife with which to cut the rest of the sandwich. 

He joined her at last, and Katara scooted a little closer to him, before she divided the soup while he cut the sandwich. Then they enjoyed the meal together.

“At least the fire is warm,” Katara remarked while they ate. 

Zuko nodded, eyes on the flames. “And the soup warmed up pretty nicely too.” 

He took a bite of his soup and washed it down with more whiskey. They had been sipping on it all evening and he had a pleasant buzz going on. It was enough to loosen his lips but not quite lower his inhibitions, and he was pretty sure that Katara had to feel the same way. 

“I’m glad you came back,” Zuko said suddenly, his voice soft. “This would’ve been a lot lonelier without your company.” 

Katara smiled at him. “And I would’ve been worried out of my mind if I couldn’t reach you.” 

Zuko checked his phone. “Yeah, that’s dead so you couldn’t’ve gotten a hold of me either.”

“Exactly.” Her smile turned into a grin. “And you probably would’ve frozen to death, since I doubt you could keep a fire going all night.”

“Ha-ha.” He rolled his eyes, but he was smirking crookedly. Then his smile softened. “I could have managed, but I’m glad I don’t have to.” 

Katara tapped her finger against the side of her empty bowl before she set it down and turned to face him. Her brows were knit and he could see it in the stubborn set of her jaw that she had something to say. 

“I know you can’t stay,” she said softly. “And I know that if you give me the bar, there’s a chance I might not ever see you again. You might not ever come back here, and I understand, because it probably hurts to be here.” Her bottom lip started to tremble. “And maybe it even hurts you to be around me, knowing how your mom was with me—” 

Zuko reached out and took her hand. “No, no, don’t say that. You are the only thing that has made this bearable at all, Katara. You’re amazing.” 

“Thank you,” she murmured as a dusky blush rose in her cheeks. “That makes me feel a little better.” She peeked up at him. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for days. You said you wanted to kiss me too, but that you couldn’t hurt me.”

“I can’t stay, Katara,” Zuko said quietly. “My life isn’t here.”

“I know.”

“And it wouldn’t be…” He shook his head as he struggled to find the words. “It wouldn’t be right to start something with you that can’t last. I won’t hurt you in that way.”

Katara leaned closer to him, putting her hand on his knee. “I’m a big girl, Zuko. I know what I’m capable of withstanding. And honestly? It’s not only up to you to decide.” Her eyes burned intensely. “All I know is that I care about you, and that I’m more attracted to you than I’ve ever been attracted to anyone else in my whole damn life, and I’m afraid that if I don’t take this chance to be with you, no matter how little time we have together, then I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears now, but it didn’t stop her from continuing. “And I don’t _want_ that. Life is too fleeting. I’ve seen it, first with my mom and now Ursa.” Katara swallowed hard. “I may be comfortable here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t crave something new. And that something is you, Zuko. I can’t explain it, but it’s just how I feel.” 

She heaved out a breath, and for a moment, Zuko couldn’t find the words to say that, inexplicably, he felt the same way that she did. So instead of saying anything, he brought his hand up to cup her cheek and kissed her. 

For a moment, Katara stiffened under his touch, clearly surprised by his gesture, before she sank into him, her hands sliding up his chest to link around his neck. Zuko cupped her face in both hands, thumbs stroking her soft skin, as he kissed her more fervently. 

At last they broke apart, lungs starving for oxygen with pupils blown wide, but their bodies knowing exactly what they wanted. 

Zuko ran his thumb across her bottom lip, feeling her warm breath on his skin, as he looked into her eyes. He could see promise there, promise of things that could be. But Zuko knew that it never would be. It just couldn’t.

But tonight, Zuko was saying to hell with what the future might hold. He was embracing the here and now. 

With that in mind, Zuko kissed her again. His mouth was insistent and her lips were pliable. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened her mouth to him. She carded her fingers through his hair as he pressed one hand to her hip, the other still holding her cheek. 

Katara broke away and peered up at him. “No regrets?” she whispered.

“And no promises,” Zuko murmured. 

Katara nodded before she kissed him again. She climbed onto his lap, her legs on either side of his waist as she knotted her fingers in his hair, holding him hostage. Zuko pulled her closer, wanting to starve the space between them of oxygen. His fingers grazed the skin at the small of her back as the thumb of his other hand traced her jawline. 

She tasted better than he had imagined, like whiskey and want, and he was drunk on her, like a sweet elixir. He wanted to drink her up.

With the storm outside forgotten, Zuko found the tie holding her hair in its braid and he tugged it free. He wound his fingers through her hair, gently untangling the plait until he could run his hands freely through her silky locks. She made a pleased noise in the back of her throat as he caressed her. 

Katara reached for the hem of his shirt and he willingly tugged it off over his head. She lightly traced the planes of his chest with her fingertips as she trailed kisses across his jaw and down his neck. Zuko gripped her hips, feeling desire pool hotly in his belly. He wanted her. He _needed_ her. 

He fumbled with the buttons on her flannel shirt but soon he was pushing it down her shoulders, kissing the soft skin that he found there. Her breaths left her in soft moans that were a melody to his ears. Soon he was pulling her tank top off over her head, needing to see her naked skin. 

There was a hunger that reached into their bones. There was a certain taste of desperation, as though everything would be alright so long as they held each other. Zuko wouldn’t think of the morning, of what would become of them when the sun shone down on them. 

He unhooked the clasp of her bra and slid it down her arms. He cupped her breasts in his hands, rolling his thumbs across her dark nipples until they pebbled beneath his touch. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back as he drew her breast into his mouth, throaty moans leaving her parted lips. 

Zuko rolled them until she lay on her back beneath him, her hooded eyes watching him with the same hunger that he knew was reflected in his own. He nipped and kissed her throat and collarbone, fingertips dancing down her sides. She shivered beneath his touch, hips lifting off the ground to meet him halfway, desperate for the friction that he longed for too. 

He kissed her insistently as he unhooked the button on her jeans. Zuko leaned back to pull them down her legs and tossed them aside. She traced his abs with her fingernails, pulling a growl from deep in his chest before she undid his jeans and tugged them down his hips. 

He kicked off his jeans and settled himself between her thighs, feeling her warmth calling to him. He pressed another kiss to her lips, the anticipation coiling tightly in his belly. 

Then Zuko pulled back to look at her. “No regrets?” he asked softly. 

She smiled sweetly at him, her fingers lightly tracing the edge of his scar. “And no promises.” 

That was all the invitation he needed before he sank into her, a shiver running from the crown of his head to his toes as she let out a soft cry, her fingernails digging into his shoulders and her back arching, searching for more. 

He had her there before the crackling fire, the only sounds their ragged breathing and her sweet moans. They moved together, push and pull, feeling the wildfire building in their bellies and spreading through their veins. His name on her lips was a prayer and he would remember the look in her eyes for the rest of his life. 

They were fluid; they were all sharp edges. Hands explored and tongues tasted and all they were was this moment, this fleeting moment in a lifetime of moments, each knowing that it would never last but praying that it would never end. 

But all good things had to come to an end, and too soon, he was spilling inside of her as she called out his name, her eyes closed and her body tensed as her climax consumed her. Soon, they were a trembling mess, spent and burnt out like embers. 

Zuko pressed a soft kiss to her lips once, twice, three times as her fingers trailed lazily down the dips in his spine and sent tremors of heat coursing across his skin. He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, knowing that when he opened them, this moment would be gone. 

“Zuko.” Her voice was a quiet rasp.

He pulled back and opened his eyes. She looked ethereal bathed in the warm firelight. He traced her lips with his thumb. But he could feel that the moment was over.

So he laid down beside her and drew her to him. Katara laid her head on his chest and he ran his fingers through her hair. For a long while neither of them spoke another word, desperately clinging to this moment for just a little while longer. 

Her quiet voice broke the silence. “This is what I love about this place so much.”

Zuko looked down at her. “What is?”

A smile, both blissful and sad, curved her lips. “It’s like its own little world. Nothing else matters except what’s happening right here, right now. Out there doesn’t matter.”

His fingers followed the curve of her neck to her shoulder. “I’ve noticed that. I think that’s what my mom liked about this place so much.” 

“I think so too,” Katara murmured. “Life is simple.” 

He kissed her forehead before he let out a sigh. “Life isn’t simple anywhere. It’s messy and it hurts.”

Her voice was small. “But not always.”

“Not always,” he agreed. 

She pushed herself up onto one elbow, meeting his gaze. “Would it be crazy if I said that I still didn’t want you to leave?”

He palmed her cheek, running his thumb along her cheekbone. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “I can’t stay.”

“I know,” she whispered. Her smile was wan when she looked at him again. “No regrets, right?”

“I’ll never regret this,” he promised her. “I won’t regret meeting you, ever. I’ll never regret being with you, no matter how short our time together is.” 

“Me either,” she said. Her fingers danced across his chest and reached for his scar, but she stopped herself. “And maybe Seattle isn’t so far.”

“And I can always come back,” he murmured, although he couldn’t say for sure if he was only saying that because it sounded like a pleasant dream, or if it was because he wasn’t certain himself if he would or wouldn’t return. 

“But no promises,” Katara said with that same sad smile.

He exhaled softly. “And no regrets.” 

They didn’t say anything else, and after a while Katara stood up and took the blanket off the couch before she wrapped it around herself and padded softly to the bathroom. 

Zuko stared up at the ceiling, feeling his heart ache in his chest. He had promised her no regrets. He had promised no promises. But he found that it was already hard for him to keep his word.

* * *

Zuko woke from a nightmare, feeling the heat of the still-burning fire in the hearth against his skin. Katara lay curled up beside him, one arm slung over his waist and her leg tucked between his. He could make out Kira’s dark shape stretched out by their feet. 

He was comforted by their presence, and that only made him feel worse. _No regrets, no promises,_ Zuko told himself through the sleep-fog and nightmare-haze in his brain. _And no attachments_. 

Zuko was good at that. It was how he had survived for as long as he had. He had severed his attachments to his father and sister somewhere between his mother’s departure and his father’s depraved indifference to his well-being. 

Zuko didn’t have friends. He’d rarely been in committed relationships—in high school and college, they had been flings, just something to do to kill time or vent frustrations or as a distraction. 

Even Mai, his on-again, off-again girlfriend of the last decade, with whom he had called it quits a few years ago, had been little more than something of comfort and familiarity. He cared for her. Maybe he even loved her. But he didn’t _love_ her. 

His only true attachment was to his uncle, the only person who had never harmed him or betrayed him or left him. The only one who had never given up hope for Zuko, who had never turned away from him.

Zuko looked down at Katara, sleeping so peacefully with her head resting on his arm. He hadn’t spent enough time with her to know if she would ever turn away from him. _I never turn my back on people who need help,_ she had told him. But what about when she was no longer needed? 

She knew that he was hurt and damaged, but she had no idea how deep that went. Would she grow tired of trying to help him, to save him, to fix him? Would she leave, just like his mother? Or would she become indifferent, like Mai? Was there a chance that she would remain compassionate, like his uncle?

Zuko didn’t know, but he knew that he couldn’t find out. He couldn’t. No matter how badly he wanted to.

* * *

The sun was almost to its zenith in the sky when Zuko and Katara untangled themselves and finally dressed. Outside, the snow had finally quit, and Katara announced that she would call Sokka.

A half an hour later, Sokka was there with Haru, and together they managed to move the tree to the side of the road and get the road cleared. Zuko put the chains on his car while Haru plowed the driveway. 

He would come back to finish dealing with his mother’s things later. First he wanted a hot meal. And he needed to charge his phone so he could call his uncle and get things moving on getting the bar paid off. 

Zuko followed Katara into town. They stopped by her house first to change their clothes before they headed to the bar. Only part of town had lost power in the storm, mostly due to fallen trees, and Katara had scarcely turned the sign on before people were coming in, looking for hot coffee and breakfast. 

He stayed long enough to eat and charge his phone before he told Katara that he had to go. 

“There’s still no power at your mom’s cabin,” Katara stated. 

“I know,” Zuko said. He swallowed hard. “But there’s still a lot of things I need to take care of if I want to get back to Seattle in a couple of days.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Right.” She gave him a tight smile. “Call me if you need anything?”

“Of course,” he said. 

Then he was heading back to his mother’s. He snapped photos of all the documents he needed before he called his uncle. Iroh promised that he would get it all forwarded to the lawyer. Neither Ozai nor Azula had contested the will, so things should go smoothly. 

With that taken care of, Zuko carried his mother’s journals out to the living room and sat down to read them.

* * *

[Art I made for this chapter](https://www.deviantart.com/the-savage-daughter/art/I-Held-You-Closer-Than-Anyone-Could-Ever-Guess-872674190)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't come for me because they did it in his dead mother's cabin please xD


	8. A Lonely Mother Gazing Out Her Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ursa's journals fill in some of the blanks for Zuko, where he learns a painful truth that only strengthens his resolve to return to Seattle.

_ December 21st, 2007 _

_ Today is Zuko’s twelfth birthday. Three birthdays now that I have missed, three years I’ve missed of watching him grow up. I miss him more and more with each passing day.  _

_ I think now that I can bear to write down the story of what happened between Ozai and I that night. I regret many things in my life, and that is one of them. If I had made different choices, perhaps I could have simply divorced Ozai and won custody of the children. But things happened the way that they did, and no amount of want or regret will change that.  _

_ I met Ozai during my sophomore year of college. He was nearly ten years my senior, and although I’m loath to admit it now, I liked having an older man’s attention. He was eloquent, charming, and charismatic. A catch, or so I thought. We began a whirlwind romance that resulted in a pregnancy that neither of us were prepared for.  _

_ I was willing to take on the role of mother although I was barely twenty years old, and Ozai was already in control of a large portion of the family business. Azulon was still alive then, as was Lu Ten. I thought that Ozai could provide for a family.  _

_ He put on a show like he was happy about a baby, but I knew he really wasn’t. Yet he still asked me to marry him, and I said yes. We wed a few months after I found out, before my belly showed that I was with child.  _

_ I kept a secret from Ozai. For part of our relationship, I was still seeing a boy I had dated my freshman year, but I had broken off my relationship with Ikem when things grew serious with Ozai. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Zuko is Ozai’s son.  _

_ Life went on. Zuko was born, plump and healthy and so beautiful, and Azula followed two and a half years later. Life was well. Motherhood became my purpose. I put all of my energy into raising my children, even as my marriage grew cold and distant. Ozai and I fell out of love, if he ever loved me to begin with.  _

_ It didn’t take long for me to realize that Ozai was abusive. I can say that so confidently now that I can almost laugh about it. Back then, I wouldn’t dare to give a name to what Ozai was. It would shatter the careful image I had painted of my family. That all was well. That we were happy.  _

_ He controlled all finances. I had my own accounts—in his name—but it was  _ his  _ money, and he never let me forget it. I never finished school, so I had no education, no way to provide for the children on my own. My parents had both passed within a year of each other, and I was alone. _

_ I found comfort in Ikem. Perhaps I had what could be called an emotional affair with him. I loved him, but I never dared to say it in so many words. But I confided in him often, through email and texts and over phone calls. We spoke secretly for years. _

_ Sometime during the spring or summer of 2005, Ozai became aware of our correspondence. I know now that he had our phones tapped and my emails hacked. I think he even had someone following me around. I was, of course, unaware of it all, until I wasn’t.  _

_ I still don’t quite know how I figured out what Ozai was doing. Call it intuition. But I began to suspect that he was reading my emails, so I came up with a plan to expose him. In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to do. I shouldn’t have done what I did. Maybe if I had done something differently, things would have turned out differently. But what’s done is done, and regrets won’t change it.  _

_ I sent Ikem an email confessing that I had been sleeping with him and Ozai at the same time, and that I believed Zuko was Ikem’s son, and not Ozai’s. It was a treacherous thing to do, but I thought it was the only thing to do at that time. With the damage done, I waited for Ozai to confront me. _

_ It came to a head shortly after Lu Ten died. Iroh was a mess, and Azulon’s health was failing. Ozai was gearing up to take the company right out from Iroh’s nose. I had always liked and admired Iroh (and sometimes even thought that if he wasn’t fifteen years older than I, and if I had met him instead of Ozai, things would have been better) and I couldn’t bear the thought of Ozai doing something so underhanded.  _

_So I confronted him. That was when he revealed that he knew all about Ikem, that he_ _had_ _been reading my email and listening to my calls. He demanded to know if what I said—that Zuko was Ikem’s—was true. I told him that it had been a lie, but that I wished that was the case._

_ Ozai grew angrier than I had ever seen him. For the first time, I was actually afraid of him. He told me that I was a whore, and that he wished he would have forced me to get an abortion like Azulon had wanted. That he would have been better off if he had gotten rid of me and Zuko. I raised my hand to slap him, and he stopped me, his grip on my wrist so tight that it bruised. I was scared, and I asked him what he would do. _

_ He told me that I needed to leave and never come back. I told him that I wouldn’t leave without the kids, but Ozai had laughed. He threw my shortcomings in my face. How could I support two kids when I had nothing? He was right. I was in no position to bargain.  _

_ I agreed to leave so long as he promised to take care of our children. He promised me that he would, but I should have known better. I asked what he would do about Zuko.  _

_ His words have haunted me ever since: “You wish he weren’t my son? Then I’ll reat him as such”. I never should have left my son with that man. It is my life’s deepest regret.  _

_ He has always favored Azula. She’s Daddy’s little princess. I knew he would always be good to her, but I think I ruined any chance of him doing right by Zuko. I should have taken him with me, consequences be damned.  _

_ I left. I took only what I could carry—some clothes, toiletries, one photo album of the kids, and all the cash that I could find. It was a measly $1700, and it didn’t go far. I made some money pawning and selling my jewelry, but those first few months were a struggle.  _

_ Before I left, I said goodbye to my children. Azula was sleeping so peacefully in her princess canopy bed, and I gave her a kiss on her forehead. But I woke Zuko up, my precious boy. I told him how much I loved him, and I told him to never forget who he was. I knew he needed to be strong to endure growing up with Ozai. _

_ Then I was gone, like smoke on the breeze.  _

_ Three long years. Every day has been a struggle. I want to go back and take my children with me, but I’m not strong enough. I’m still terrified of Ozai. He’s a powerful man, and he will keep the children as hostages if only to hold them over me.  _

_ Maybe one day I’ll be strong enough to get my children away from him. But today is not that day.  _

_ January 2nd, 2012 _

_ I am currently sitting in the general store belonging to a woman named Kanna, watching the snow come down outside. It’s a real blizzard out there, the flakes coming down so fast and hard that I can’t even make out the buildings across the street. It’s freezing cold and my RV is out of gas, and it looks like I’m stuck here for a while. What a lovely way to start the new year. _

_ I’ve never seen a store quite like this before. It’s like an old-fashioned mercantile straight from another era. “Kanna’s General Store”, says the cheerfully painted sign on the plate-glass windows. Inside are rows of shelves filled with dry goods, everything from food to books to hardware supplies. There are baskets of yarn on shelves and over-the-counter drugs. She sells coffee and baked goods like donuts and bagels at the register. I’m drinking a cup of coffee and eating a delicious garlic-parmesan bagel as I write this. _

_ I don’t know what urged me to come here. I could tell that a storm was coming in and I was low on gas, and if I had any sense I likely would have kept driving past the turn-off to the road that leads to this place, so far up the mountain and so secluded from everything else, so I could find some gas and maybe a cheap motel. But when I saw the road sign, it almost seemed to call to me.  _

_ I didn’t get a good look at the town, but from what I saw, it seems like a decent place. Small, situated right on a lake. Not that I can see it with the blizzard going on right now. But I did see the resort, the only thing that would seem to attract outsiders to this place, while I was searching for a place to park.  _

_ The RV died on the side of the road across the street from Kanna’s. She saw me out there and knew I wasn’t from around here (I suppose I stand out a bit in my Airstream, haha), and she came to me with the offer of a hot cup of coffee.  _

_ Kanna seems like a sweet, genuine person. She has a homely face, a kind face. She gives off the aura of someone who is wise and gentle. I find her presence comforting. _

_ I should put my journal away for now. I still need to think up a way to get some cash together to put gas in the RV. Hopefully this storm blows over soon. _

_ January 3rd, 2012 _

_ I never did get the gas for the Airstream last night. Somehow Kanna managed to get it out of me that I was as good as stuck, living on the road, and struggling to get by. Part of me wonders if she put something in that coffee that loosened my lips, but maybe it’s just because I just found her so warm and comforting. _

_ Regardless of what it was, she offered me refuge from this storm in her home. At first, I said no. I have taken people up on their hospitality many times over these long years that I’ve been gone, but there was something different about Kanna. It was like chicken soup when you’re sick, or a favorite movie on a rainy day. Comforting. A part of me was worried that if I said yes, I may start down a path I couldn’t turn back from.  _

_ But Kanna’s comforting aura drew me in. When I looked at her, for the first time in years it felt like maybe there was a place in the world for me. _

_ So I allowed her to bring me home, like a stray dog she found caught out in a storm (which I suppose isn’t that inaccurate). I met her granddaughter, a lovely girl named Katara. She’s Azula’s age. She has a grandson too, Sokka. He’s about a year younger than Zuko, but he’s off on a trip with their dad over the break. Kanna’s son, Hakoda, is a freight driver, and is often gone for weeks at a time.  _

_ The blizzard hasn’t let up yet (in fact, it’s knocked the power out now. Thankfully they have a woodstove). Once it’s over, I’ll be moving on from this place. But I will never forget their kindness.  _

_ January 27th, 2012 _

_ This is not the longest I’ve stayed somewhere, but this is the first time that I’ve been reluctant to leave.  _

_ I’ve taken to helping Kanna around her store to help repay some of her kindness. Katara has truly taken a liking to me. She’s always asking me questions, especially about my travels. I’ve usually kept that sort of thing to myself, but I find that it’s easy to open up to her and her family, as if I belong somewhere.  _

_ Kanna said something to me a few days ago, something that has stuck with me. She told me that I was a black bird in a blizzard, my struggle abundantly clear to those who were watching the storm. She said that we all need a little help sometimes. _

_ Maybe she’s right. Maybe all I need is a little help. _

_ January 2nd, 2013 _

_ Today marks one year since I came to Clear Lake. Who would have imagined how much change one year could bring?  _

_ I sold the Airstream. I bought a business and turned it into a bar. I’ve rented my own cabin right on the lake, and the owner tells me I’m welcome to rent-to-own it. Life is good for the first time in years. The only thing missing is my children.  _

_ Zuko is nineteen years old now. Azula is seventeen. I still dream about his graduation last June. My boy, all grown up. I hid there in the back of the crowd and watched him walk across that stage. But my dream often turns into a nightmare where Zuko looks across the sea of faces at me, and I see the scar. That terrible, terrible thing.  _

_ I don’t know how he got it, but I can only imagine the pain it caused. Pain that his mother wasn’t there to ease.  _

_ I’m not sure how, but I’ve come to look at Katara and Sokka as if they are my own children. Especially Katara. She is so different from Azula. The sort of daughter I always wanted.  _

_ She embraced me wholeheartedly, and when I learned the story of her mother, I understood. I can never replace Kya, just as Katara and Sokka can never replace Azula and Zuko, but we find comfort in our relationships with each other. It’s almost like the real thing.  _

_ I didn’t know that when I ended up here that I would find a home. But I have. There is still that ache in my chest, but I have found purpose here. Ozai can’t hurt me here.  _

_ And now that my children are nearly grown, I have hope that maybe someday soon I can emerge from the shadows and let them know that I am still here. Ozai cannot keep them from me forever.  _

_ One day, my loves, I will come back to you. _

_ June 6th, 2014 _

_ I saw Azula today. She graduated from high school, and just as I did for Zuko, I went to see her get her diploma. I slipped away as I did before, but she saw me. I’m only thankful that Ozai didn’t see me too. _

_ She was angry, and rightfully so. She demanded to know why I had left. Why I had never come back. But it was not the time nor place for that conversation. I gave her my phone number and told her to call me.  _

_ She hasn’t called yet, but surely she will. She must be waiting until she is alone. I will wait for her, as she has waited for me all these years. _

_ July 12th, 2014 _

_ I have not heard from Azula yet. I know she’s angry with me. Hopefully her rage will cool soon, and she’ll call.  _

_ I want to explain everything. Maybe she’s old enough to understand. Perhaps I can begin to repair the damage to our relationship. Then I can reach out to Zuko and do the same.  _

_ September 28th, 2014 _

_ Azula is not ready to forgive me. It is the only explanation for her silence. It’s what I deserve.  _

* * *

Zuko snapped the journal closed and let it fall onto the couch beside him. Then he buried his hands in his hair as hot tears burned his eyes. 

Fucking Azula _.  _ She’d  _ seen  _ their mother, had gotten her phone number, had the ability to  _ speak with their mom _ , and never said a spirits-damned word about it. Zuko couldn’t even put a name to the emotions he was feeling. 

But Zuko wasn’t that surprised. This was his sister, after all. She hated their mom, and it had nothing to do with Ursa leaving. She was Ozai’s prodigy. Ursa had tried to dampen down the parts of Azula that were like Ozai, when all she wanted was their father’s approval. It wasn’t much different from how Zuko himself had been, but he was nothing like his father. He was his mother’s son.

And his own sister had robbed him of the opportunity to speak to Ursa, to find out everything he had learned from her journals. He could have had a fucking relationship with her. And Azula had stolen that from him. 

Feeling angry and restless, Zuko jumped to his feet and began to pace the length of the cabin. His emotions boiled up within him like a storm—no, like a blizzard: solid and frigid and blinding. 

When he got back to Seattle, he would confront Azula. He would demand to know why she never called their mother, or at the very least didn’t pass her number on to him. He barely spoke to his sister, but he wouldn’t leave until she told him why. 

His father and sister were such terrible, selfish people. He was glad he had cut ties with Ozai years ago, after his father had burned him. But Zuko carried more scars than the one he wore on his face, and it all tied back his toxic family and the tangled webs they weaved.

Zuko stopped his pacing in front of the fireplace, the place that was forever marked by the moment he and Katara had shared last night. He saw the framed photo of the three of them; him, his mother, and his sister. 

Something seemed to snap inside of him and Zuko grabbed it off the mantle before he threw it across the room. The frame crashed into the wall and broke; the glass shattering and falling to the floor like snowflakes. 

Azula didn’t deserve their mother. She was depraved and indifferent. Ursa had made the right call, leaving everything she owned to him. Azula would have just sold it all off without a care, without considering what this place meant to Ursa. She would have never bothered to learn about Ursa’s life here or tried to connect with Katara. 

Zuko knew then that he couldn’t stay here. He had unfinished business to settle in Seattle. His mother’s ghost could not be laid to rest until he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean for this chapter to be 95% journal entries, but it happened. Oops. I thoroughly enjoyed filling out some of Ursa's past through her journals (and really, I almost added a few more entries), so I hope you guys liked it.


	9. I Live This Life Just to Bear These Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko returns to Katara's house where he gives her some regretful news. They spend the night together again, and the next morning, Katara gives him something unexpected that sends him on an emotional rollercoaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, one more chapter *sobs*

Zuko pulled up beside Katara’s truck as the last traces of light faded from the sky. He cut the car’s engine and the headlights turned off, leaving the night illuminated only by the yellow porch light. It was like a lighthouse, beckoning him to safe harbor. 

Zuko sat still, feeling the silence that surrounded him for several moments before he opened the door. The cold air nipped at his skin and he shuddered, longing for the heat of Katara’s touch.

Then he got out of the car and went inside. Katara was curled up on the couch with a book in her lap—the same one she had been reading at his mother’s cabin—with Kira laying in front of the woodstove, sleeping peacefully. 

Katara looked up at him, her brow knitting as she took him in. She closed the book and set it on the end table.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him worriedly. He wondered if he wore his emotions so openly, or if she already knew him so well.

Zuko shed his boots and coat before he went to the couch and dropped down beside her. He felt tired, more tired than he could ever recall feeling. His head throbbed with a headache and his limbs felt like they were made of stone. 

Meanwhile, Katara waited quietly, patiently, for him to speak. She turned until her body faced him, her knees gently pressed against his thigh. Her face was an open book, and he found himself wishing that he could ease the worry that he saw brewing there, but he knew that he wasn’t. 

“My mother spoke to my sister years ago,” he admitted quietly as he stared at the orange glow of the flames through the murky doors of the woodstove. “She gave my sister her phone number, and Azula never called her. Not once. And Azula never told me.”

A single, hot tear rolled down his cheek and Zuko scrubbed it away. Katara didn’t speak.

“If my sister had just said something, I could have talked to her,” he murmured despondently. “I could have spent these years with her, talking to her…” He shook his head forlornly. “My sister kept her from me. Why?”

Katara took his hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m so sorry, Zuko.” 

He released a breath that trembled slightly. He knew that what he was about to say would only hurt her, but Zuko had made up his mind. He needed to rip this off like a band-aid. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Zuko told her quietly.

Katara stiffened beside him as she pulled her hand away. “Why...so soon?” Her brow knit. “I thought…”

“I found my answers here,” Zuko said thickly. “I need to deal with my sister. I need to find out why.” He finally looked at Katara. “I’m sorry.”

She looked away, but he could see the way her bottom lip trembled. He’d hurt her, just like he knew he would. His heart pulled painfully in his chest. 

“No promises,” Zuko told her softly, feeling how hollow those words tasted on his tongue even as he said them. 

Katara swallowed hard. “I just thought we would have more time. A few days, at least…”

“I know. I did too.” Zuko took her hand as he leaned closer to her, hoping she could understand. “But I need to face this. I can’t...I’m so  _ angry.  _ My whole life is lies and secrets and I need to sort through it all. I’ve done what I can here. I need to go home.”

“Home,” she repeated distantly. 

“I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning,” he said quietly. 

Katara nodded. She glanced down at their entwined hands. He felt her tear fall onto his wrist and felt his heart ache in his chest. He never wanted to hurt her, but he was. He hated it.

Zuko cupped her cheek in his free hand and guided her head until she looked at him. Her eyes were glassy with her tears. 

“We knew this wouldn’t last,” he told her softly. “But you’ll always mean something to me. No one has ever done as much for me as you have.” 

Katara closed her eyes as her tears began to fall; twin rivulets that ran down the valleys of her beautiful face. She swiped them away with her free hand. She nodded but seemed unable to speak. 

Instead, she leaned up and kissed him, hard enough that he could taste the desperation and want on her lips. Katara carded her fingers through his hair as she slid onto his lap. Zuko felt his body respond to her as he gripped her waist. He kissed her back just as earnestly.

Was it possible? Did she understand why he needed to go? That he couldn’t stay? Zuko only hoped that she knew that it hurt him to leave this place, to leave her. 

He couldn’t explain it, not in so many words, but he felt drawn to her. When he had first come here, he had felt that sense of hiraëth. He felt it now, but he thought that maybe it was Katara. She felt like she could be home, but he knew that he couldn’t stay.

It was more than just his job or his uncle or even what Azula had kept from him and what his father had done. His mother’s ghost haunted this town; it walked these quiet streets and left its mark on everyone and every place. The bar, her home, hell, even Katara and Kira. They were all a part of her, and it pained Zuko to be in their vicinity as much as he craved Katara’s presence.

But Zuko pushed all of that away. He had one last night with Katara, and he wasn’t going to let his own bullshit interfere with it. She wanted him and he needed her, so he would give in to this moment, this one final moment between them.

Zuko ran his hands up her sides until he cupped her cheeks, drawing her bottom lip between his teeth. Katara pulled herself closer to him, as though she could fuse them together if she only held on tight enough. 

After a moment, she broke away, her pupils blown wide and her chest heaving slightly. “Let’s go to my bedroom,” she murmured.

Zuko obliged readily as he gripped the backs of her thighs and stood up effortlessly. Katara gasped lightly and he smirked at her. She bit her lip and shook her head before she pressed a hot kiss to the knot of his throat that had him picking up his pace. 

He pushed open her bedroom door with one hand and the smell of honeysuckle washed over him. He hadn’t been into her bedroom before, but he didn’t waste his time looking for a light switch as he carried her over towards the shape of the bed along the wall.

Zuko set Katara down on the bed as he leaned over her, trailing kisses up her neck and across her jaw before he captured her mouth in a kiss. Katara’s fingers skimmed across his throat and down the planes of his chest, eagerly reaching for the button on his jeans.

He caught her wrist in one hand and pulled back enough to look her in the eyes. 

“Let’s take it slow,” he said softly before he kissed her again. “We can take our time.” He nipped at her earlobe, drawing a sharp gasp from her. “We can take all night, if you want.”

Her voice was a breathy rasp, but she was still fire and brimstone as she gave him a cocky grin. 

“Are you up for that?” she panted.

Zuko barked out a laugh. “Is that a challenge?”

“Might be,” Katara purred, peeking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Think you can handle it?”

He smirked down at her. He could feel the way his body responded to everything about her: the feeling of her beneath him, the sound of her voice, the touch of her skin, the look in her eyes. Zuko had never been this attracted to any other person in his whole life. He hadn’t even known that it was possible to feel so strongly for another person the way that he did for Katara.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he said cockily. 

Then, before she could say anything else that would get under his skin and light his veins on fire, Zuko kissed her again. 

They took their time, hands exploring and mouths tasting, savoring each touch and kiss. Zuko undressed her slowly, his eyes eating up each exposed inch of skin as his hands caressed her gently. He wanted to—no, he  _ needed _ to—commit each curve and valley of her body to memory.

Likewise, Katara seemed intent on memorizing the lines of his body as well. Once his shirt was off, she traced each side of his chest with her fingertips, following the taut muscles of his stomach before she leaned down to trail feather-light kisses along the line of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. 

He’d nearly come undone right then, but he forced himself to hold still as she kissed her way up his stomach and chest, across his collar bone, along his jaw, before finally coming to a stop at his mouth. 

When he finally had her, it was bliss. They moved together in perfect harmony, like yin and yang, as if this was meant to be. But they both knew that it couldn’t last.

After they were spent, they lay in the soft silence, not speaking. Her body fit perfectly tucked against his, and it didn’t take long for their breathing to fall into a similar rhythm. He could feel her heart beating in time with his where it was pressed against his ribs.

But their reprieve was brief, and the second time had a sense of desperation to it, knowing that they only had a few more chances to experience this before dawn broke and Zuko had to leave. 

Katara climbed on top of him, her mouth rough as it traversed the now-familiar paths of his skin. They moved together again, perfectly in sync, until their climaxes crashed over them like a tidal wave.

Only when they’d exhausted themselves a third time, and the clock on the bedside table showed that dawn was just a handful of hours away, did they finally succumb to sleep, tangled up together in Katara’s sheets. 

Zuko slept soundly for the first time in weeks, too exhausted to think about what would happen when the morning came. 

* * *

  
  


He woke to the dawn’s soft gray light seeping into Katara’s bedroom. Kira was spread out across the end of the bed, snoring lightly, and he could feel Katara’s even breathing beside him. 

She had turned away from him in the night but remained pressed against him, her skin warm where it touched him. Zuko allowed his fingers to trace the curve of her bare shoulder before he released a breath. Carefully, he extricated himself and quietly pulled on his jeans. Kira lifted her head with a disgruntled whine.

“Ssh,” he told the dog before he left the bedroom and padded softly down the hallway to the bathroom. 

He looked at his reflection in the mirror as if it would give him the answer that he wanted, but he only saw the truth in his eyes: he couldn’t stay. 

Frustrated with himself, Zuko stripped out of his jeans and turned the shower on, hoping the hot water would clear his head and offer some clarity. 

But standing under the spray didn’t seem to have any effect on the weight in his chest. Zuko knew that he needed to go, no matter how badly part of him wanted to stay. 

He didn’t hear Katara come into the bathroom, but he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. When he looked up, he could see her shape standing outside of the steamy shower door, and when she opened it, she stood naked on the other side. 

Zuko stepped back and Katara accepted his invitation as she came into the shower beside him. The water streamed down her bare flesh and soaked into her thick hair. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Katara put her arms around him and kissed him hard. 

That kiss tasted of everything he was thinking, and he knew that she felt the same way he did. 

Zuko snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her against him, longing for the feeling of her skin pressed to his. She was a beautiful drug, and he was just a junkie, jonesing for his fix. 

The hot water beat down on them, but Katara’s touch was the only thing that he could feel.

* * *

“There’s something that I need to give you before you leave.” 

Katara’s voice was soft and forlorn in the muted house. Zuko had just finished packing up his meager belongings and was getting ready to go out to Ursa’s cabin to get the things that he was taking with him. He was standing near the door, getting ready to don his jacket and boots before he left. 

“What is it?” Zuko asked. 

Katara got up from the couch and went down the hallway to her bedroom. Zuko put on his coat and boots and waited by the door, wondering what Katara could possibly have for him. Oddly, he felt anxiety coil in his belly, although he didn’t understand why. Maybe it had been something in the melancholic tone of her voice.

But before he could wonder about it any further, Katara emerged from her bedroom. She was holding something in her hands. Only when she came back into the living room did he realize that the object she was holding was a small metal urn. Tucked beneath her arm was a large manila envelope. 

Zuko swallowed hard against the unexpected grief that rose up in his throat. His eyes burned and suddenly it felt like the walls were closing in on him, like all he could see was the urn in Katara’s hands.

“Is that—” he began.

Katara nodded slowly, cradling the urn with reverence. “Yeah, it is.” She cleared her throat as she stepped closer to him. But she didn’t offer him the urn. “I...I picked up the—her—ashes a few days before you got here. And the death certificate.” She swallowed before she held it out to him. “So...here.” 

Zuko glanced at the urn before he looked up at Katara. All of the emotions of the past few weeks seemed to rise up within him like a tidal wave. He couldn’t explain it, not really, but suddenly, he was furious. 

He was furious with his dad for a plethora of reasons, and really, that was the cancerous tumor behind all of his rage and pain. But it had metastasized into anger at his sister, his mother, and maybe even the entire world at this point. It roared in his veins, and when he looked at Katara, at what she was holding in her hands, it seemed to take over.

“You’ve...you’ve had her for  _ days _ and you didn’t say anything?” Zuko demanded to know, his voice dangerously quiet and filled with barely-controlled rage. “You didn’t give her to me? You didn’t even  _ tell  _ me?”

Katara must have seen his anger, because her eyes grew wide and she took a half-step back. “I’m sorry, Zuko. I was going to do it that second day you were here, but then you were...well, you know. And then there just didn’t seem to be a good time—”

“It’s my dead mother’s  _ ashes,  _ Katara,” Zuko snapped furiously. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a good fucking time!”

“I’m sorry,” Katara said again, quieter now.

Zuko raked his hand through his hair, ignoring the way his hands were shaking. “You’re sorry? Fucking hell, Katara.” 

He reached for the urn and nearly ripped it from her hands. Katara let out a small gasp, and he’d feel guilty about that tiny noise later, but for right now, he didn’t give a damn. 

“Let’s not pretend you were being anything but selfish,” Zuko said coldly as he glared at her. “I’ve read her fucking journals. I know how you two were with each other.” His grip tightened on the urn, feeling the cold metal bite into his skin. “You just didn’t want to let go of her yet.”

Her mouth dropped open as his words hit her. He saw the tears well up in her eyes, but he was too angry to care. Zuko didn’t know why it mattered so much. It was wrong of her to hold on to Ursa’s ashes, but she’d given them to him, hadn’t she? But it still didn’t stop the way that he was feeling. 

“It’s not like that at all,” Katara said, her voice tight. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Zuko, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like this.”

Zuko barked out an incredulous laugh. “And  _ nothing _ gave you the right to hold on to my mother’s ashes, but here we are.” He grabbed his bag and shouldered it before he turned for the door. “Goodbye, Katara.”

“Zuko, wait!” Katara stepped forward, reaching for him. “Please don’t go, not like this. Don’t leave like this.”

Zuko stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He stared down at it, knowing that if he walked out that door right now, leaving things this way between them, that there would never be any hope for anything more between them. 

Because even now, even though Zuko was leaving, there was still that faint glimmer of hope that maybe one day he could return here, return to her, or perhaps she would come to him in Seattle, and they could be more than what they’d been for the last few days. If he left right now, it would never be.

But his anger was not quick to die out, and his pride was not easy to swallow. He gripped the doorknob in his hand as he felt the war inside of him, knowing that anger, as it had for so long in his life, would win out. 

“I’m sorry, Katara,” Zuko said. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the bright sunlight. 

He didn’t look back as his boots crunched over the snow as he stomped to the Challenger. He still held his mother’s urn close to his chest, feeling his heart thump against the cold metal. 

Zuko didn’t know why it mattered so damn much. This urn wasn’t his mother; that cabin on the lake, with the journals and the crafts were Ursa, the bar was Ursa. Even Katara was Ursa, with the memories she held, memories he hadn’t really had the nerve to ask about. He couldn’t rationalize it to himself, but for some reason, it  _ mattered.  _

He heard Katara’s boots on the snow but he didn’t turn around, not even when she called out his name. 

“Zuko, wait!” 

Katara moved in front of him, blocking his path to the car. Her eyes were bright and glassy and he could see the tears glittering on her cheeks. His heart pulled in his chest at the sight. Isn’t this what he wanted to avoid doing? He didn’t want to hurt her, but he let his temper get the best of him—again. 

“I should go,” Zuko said thickly, feeling his emotions tightening his throat. 

“I didn’t mean to keep her from you,” Katara whispered. She pressed her lips into a thin line to stop their trembling before she spoke again. “You’re right. I was being selfish.” Her eyes flickered to the urn. “I wanted to keep her with me for just a little while longer. It was wrong of me. She wasn’t mine to keep.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks and despite everything, Zuko found himself wanting to reach out and wipe them away. “She meant a lot to me. And I know that’s not right. It’s not fair to you, but that’s the truth.”

Zuko looked away again, feeling his eyes sting with tears of his own. He clenched his jaw as he tried to reign in his emotions. That’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it? He was hurt by Katara’s relationship with his mother. If he was being completely honest with himself, he was jealous of it, because he didn’t get to have that with Ursa.

He finally forced himself to look at Katara. “It’s not your fault. You...none of this had anything to do with you. It’s my fucked up family.” Zuko looked down at the urn. “I...I’m sorry, Katara. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

“No, you’re right to be mad at me,” Katara said softly. “I should have given you her ashes right away.”

Zuko scrubbed his hand down his face. “It’s not you I’m mad at, Katara. I’m just...angry.” He shook his head. “I’m pissed at my dad and my sister, and yeah, I’m a little pissed at my mom. This has all just been so…” He trailed off, searching for the words he needed to convey how he felt, but finding nothing adequate. “Fucked up.”

Katara nodded in understanding. She reached out and squeezed his arm. “I can’t even imagine, Zuko. I just wanted to help you. I’m sorry if I made it worse.”

“No, you haven’t.” He shook his head again. Zuko huffed out a heavy sigh before he looked at her. “I need to go. It’s a long drive and I...I need to deal with this.”

“Your sister?” Katara asked, and he nodded. Katara nodded in understanding. She released her own shallow breath, but she wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Will you please call me if you need anything?  _ Anything. _ ” She finally glanced up at him. “I mean it.”

Zuko felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. How could Katara be so...so  _ good?  _ So kind, so understanding, so forgiving? It almost seemed like a cruel twist of fate for him to meet someone like her, someone like her who wanted to be with him, only for him to leave.

“I will,” Zuko said, and he meant it. He reached for her and put his arm around her waist before he drew her in. “Thank you...for everything.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”

Katara held him tightly for a moment. Zuko didn’t want to let her go, but he had to. If he stayed any longer, he might not ever leave. Finally, Zuko stepped back. For a moment, he and Katara just looked at each other in the frosty morning. 

Then Kira came bounding out of the house, through the front door that Katara had left open. Zuko and Katara looked at the dog as she loped over to them, tail wagging and tongue lolling from her mouth.

“What are you going to do with Kira?” Katara asked him. “She was your mom’s. She belongs to you.”

Zuko looked between the dog and Katara before he shook his head. “No,” he said. “She belongs to you.”

He kissed her then, softly at first, but then more intensely. Katara pressed her hand to his scarred cheek for a moment, but then Zuko pulled back. He studied her face, committing it to memory.

“I’ll see you around, Katara,” Zuko said.

Then he moved past her, petting Kira’s head as he went, before he climbed into the Challenger. Katara watched him back down the plowed driveway, standing in the snow with Kira beside her. Her hand was on the necklace around her throat, and he could see how bright blue her eyes were even from a distance.

Zuko turned the car around, and then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you guys are probably worried about how this is gonna end, probably even more so now with this last chapter. I'm sorry, but Zuko really just had to be a jerk here. It had to happen.


	10. 'Cause I Built You A Home In My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko confronts Azula, but he doesn't get the answers he's hoping for. Later on, Iroh gives him some encouraging advice, and Zuko finds a way to let some of his pain go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end *sobs*. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, kudos'd, and commented on this fic! This has been one hell of a journey. Thank you all for coming on it with me!

Zuko could tell that he had taken Azula by surprise by the look on her face when she walked into the meeting room at the Jasmine Dragon’s corporate headquarters and saw what he had set up on the long table. But she quickly neutralized her expression as she came deeper into the room.

“Azula,” Zuko greeted her, his voice carefully controlled. “Glad you could make it.” 

She stopped just before the table, her sharp eyes taking in the urn and the journals Zuko had so pointedly arranged. 

“What’s this about, Zuzu?” Azula demanded to know, her tone conveying boredom. 

Zuko leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table as he looked at her coldly. “It’s about our mother, Azula.” 

He watched her face carefully, but her countenance remained placid as she looked him in the eye. His sister was a venus fly trap; beautiful and unassuming, but dangerous all the same. He was hard pressed to keep his own expression blank. 

“What about her?” Azula inquired, her voice still holding that note of boredom. But Zuko knew his sister all too well. She wouldn’t have come here unless she was curious. 

“I went to her home and went through her things,” Zuko stated. He gestured to the journals. “She kept journals the entire time she was gone. Detailed journals.” 

Azula’s eyes fell on the black books, but she didn’t speak. She was waiting for him to get to the point, and he wondered if she already suspected what the journals had told him. Azula was smart enough to put the pieces together. She met his gaze.

“She came to our high school graduations,” Zuko drawled, still keeping his voice tightly controlled. He studied his sister. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” 

Azula looked away, her lip curling back before she looked at him again. “Is there a point to all of this, Zuko? Or were you hoping for some emotional bonding moment over how much we both miss our dead mother? Because I think we both know that isn’t going to happen.” 

Zuko stood up and leaned across the table towards her. His jaw was clenched so tightly that his teeth ached. She’d always had a way of getting under his skin, and she was doing it now, even when he thought that he had the upper hand. How could she be so cold about Ursa? But he wasn’t going to let her win this time. 

“You  _ saw  _ her,” Zuko said accusingly, his eyes narrowed. “You talked to Mom. She even—she even gave you her phone number. She wanted you to call her.” He barked out an incredulous laugh. “But you never did. Not for six fucking years, Azula.” He sobered and gave her a hard look. “I guess I just want to know why.” 

Azula stared at him for a beat, her jaw working. Zuko wondered how she would justify this, how she would try to worm her way out of this. She couldn’t deny it. Zuko had the proof. Would she just blow him off and pretend that she didn’t care, or would she admit to it and explain herself? 

When Azula didn’t say anything, Zuko spoke again. “Or why you didn’t tell  _ me.  _ Why you didn’t give me her number.”

He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. Then her expression hardened as she looked at him again. 

“She hurt us by leaving,” Azula said coldly. “She didn’t deserve to know us.” 

Zuko stared at his sister dumbly for a moment before he scowled at her. “You didn’t have the right to make that decision for me.” 

“We were better off without her,” Azula shot back. 

Zuko scoffed, outraged. “We were better  _ off?  _ We were better off with Ozai? You really believe that?” He pointed angrily to the scar on his face, the one his mother didn’t know how he got it. “He did  _ this  _ to me, and you want me to believe that I was better off with him?”

“Don’t be such a baby, Zuko,” Azula snipped. “Dad was teaching you a lesson.”

“It was wrong, and it was cruel,” Zuko snapped back. He gestured to the journals. “I deserved to know our mom, Azula. And you and Ozai took that away from me. Now she’s dead, and I won’t ever get to have that.” 

Azula dropped her gaze, her jaw working again. “I hated her. I was angry. I’m  _ still  _ angry. I couldn’t believe she would just show up like that...like she had a right.”

“She was our mother,” Zuko bit out. “She had  _ every _ right.” He huffed out a breath. “Ozai made her leave. Did you know that?”

He could see it in her eyes when she looked up at him. She hadn’t known.

“Yeah,” Zuko said flatly. “It’s Dad’s fault.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Azula said. He wasn’t imagining the way her voice shook. 

He grabbed one of the journals out of the stack and flipped it to the page he wanted. He thrust the book in Azula’s face. 

“It’s all right there,” Zuko told her harshly. 

Azula’s eyes flickered between him and the journal before she reluctantly took it. Zuko waited in tense silence as her eyes skimmed the words on the page. Azula gripped the journal tightly, and as she read the entry further, her brow furrowed and her lips quirked downwards. When she finished, she snapped the journal closed and set it quietly on the table.

“That changes nothing,” she spat, all venom, although she couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice. “Mom made a mistake lying to Dad. She shouldn’t have done that.”

Zuko looked at her incredulously. Could she be so blind? How could she be so devoted to their father, a man who cared not about his children, but what they could do for him? He couldn’t believe Azula could still defend Ozai like that, after everything he had done. This was why he had stopped talking to his sister in the first place. Her blind faith in the man who had ruined both of their lives neve ceased to infuriate him. 

“I wish I could say that I can’t believe you, but I do,” Zuko said coldly. “You’ve always been his favorite. You’re like a...like a loyal dog, just following him around, always doing what he wants without hesitation. You see the truth right in front of you—” He gestured to the journal. “—and yet you’re gonna turn a blind eye to it. You’re gonna find a way to blame it on Mom, like it’s somehow her fault. Because you’ll defend him to the end, and I just don’t fucking know why.”

Azula inspected her cuticles, her mouth puckering like she’d tasted something sour. “Are we done here?” The bored façade was back. 

Zuko scoffed again. “And then you deflect. It’s just what I expected from you.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “What do you want from me, Zuko? Some big, emotional meltdown where I realize what a terrible person our father is and that poor Mom did what she thought she had to do?” She chuckled cruelly. “It’s not going to happen. This was a waste of both of our time. Goodbye, Zuko.”

Azula turned to head for the door. Zuko narrowed his eyes at her retreating back, unwilling to let her go. He hadn’t come here for this to go nowhere, although it was what he’d expected. But he had hoped for more. Maybe that had been foolish of him. 

“That’s it, then?” Zuko said to her back. “You’re just gonna walk away?”

Azula stopped and turned her head until he could just see the profile of her face. “Nothing we say changes what happened. Mom left, Dad is an asshole, and me and you are just collateral damage, Zuko. You should just let it go. Make peace and be happy.”

“How can you just live with that?” Zuko demanded to know. 

Azula paused for a moment before she turned around to face him fully. Zuko could see the vulnerability and pain in her eyes for the briefest moment before she neutralized her expression once again.

“Because it’s just easier this way,” she said softly. Then she stiffened, her shoulders squaring as she realized that she had slipped. “It sounds like you’re really angry with Dad. Maybe you should confront  _ him _ with all of this.” Her eyes flashed. “Or are you too scared?”

Then Azula turned and left the room, leaving Zuko in stunned silence.

* * *

Zuko sat broodingly in his office, his half-finished work sitting forgotten in front of him as he stared out the large window at the bright sunlight outside. He was thinking about that secluded little town again, and his mother’s cabin situated on the lake there. 

But mostly, he was thinking about the girl with the bright blue eyes and kind smile. Katara. These days, it almost seemed like she was all he could think about.

But his thoughts of her were always haunted by a sense of guilt. It had been two months since he had left that sleepy, snowy town, and he hadn’t been back. He’d talked to her, but he’d kept their calls and messages perfunctory, businesslike. He felt terrible for snubbing her like that, but he couldn’t...he couldn’t bring himself to be more open with her. 

He’d paid the bar off in full, and when everything went through, he’d called Katara to give her the good news. She was the official owner of  _ The Drunken Turtleduck _ . She’d been ecstatic, but he could hear it in her voice that she wanted to know if he was coming back soon. But Zuko didn’t have an answer for her.

They’d spoken a handful of times since then. She’d helped him clear out the rest of the things from Ursa’s cabin, and now it sat empty as Zuko debated on what he wanted to do with it. Katara had told him that he could rent it out. It was prime real estate. He could even sell it. But Zuko hadn’t made up his mind. 

He didn’t want to admit that maybe the reason that he didn’t want to do anything with the cabin…was just in case he decided to go back.

Life hadn’t been the same since he returned, even after his confrontation with Azula and his father. It was the second time Zuko had spoken to his father in nearly a decade—the first time being after Katara had called him to tell him of Ursa’s death—and it had been ugly. 

Zuko had gone directly to his father’s company and had confronted him shortly after Azula had left. He’d confronted his father with the truth of Ursa’s journals. He’d expected denial or gaslighting, and that’s exactly what Ozai had given him. 

Zuko had thrown his accusations and his evidence in his father’s face, his voice rising until it had crescendoed, feeling years of pain and rage flow out of him. It had felt  _ good _ . 

He wasn’t afraid of his father, not like he had been in his youth. When Ozai stood up as if to take a swing at him, Zuko had stepped forward, like a challenge, as if to say,  _ try it, old man. I’m not a thirteen year old kid anymore. I’m not afraid of you. _ Ozai must have seen it in Zuko’s eyes because he didn’t dare come any closer or raise a hand. 

The confrontation had been cathartic, and he’d left with some sense of triumph. But as the high of victory wore off, the melancholy settled in. No amount of yelling or catharsis would change the past. It wouldn’t bring his mother back. He had no forgiveness for his father and sister, and maybe he wasn’t as angry as he’d been, but he was still mad. 

Uncle Iroh had done his best to help Zuko, just as he had since Zuko was a boy. But nothing seemed to help, and as the weeks dragged by, Zuko was plagued by a restlessness he could feel all the way to his bones. Seattle began to feel like a prison, like the walls were closing in on him.

He couldn’t focus on his work. He would go home and stare at the urn that sat on the TV stand and feel his emotions roiling in him like a maelstrom. He thought he’d been dealing with this, his mother’s death and the revelations it had brought, but clearly, he’d been wrong. 

The problem was that Zuko didn’t know  _ how  _ to deal with it. 

That’s what he was thinking when there came a knock at his office door, and a moment later, Iroh poked his head in. He took in Zuko’s slouched position and furrowed brow, and let out a soft sigh. 

“I was going to invite you to join me for lunch, but I see that you are not in the mood for that,” Iroh said.

Zuko scrubbed his hand down his face and huffed out a breath. “No, not really.” 

Iroh stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. “What troubles you, nephew?” 

“Nothing. Everything. Fuck!” He raked both hands through his hair irritably. 

Iroh sat down in the chair across the desk. He folded his hands across his ample stomach and studied Zuko for a moment. Zuko scowled out the window and waited for Iroh to speak, to maybe give him some wisdom he could use to work through some of his pain and anger. 

“These last few months,” Iroh said slowly. “I know they’ve been hard for you, Zuko. You hold this anger and hurt inside of you and it has nowhere to go. Losing someone is never easy, but these circumstances are especially trying.” 

Zuko snorted. That was an understatement. 

Iroh leaned closer to him, his warm amber eyes earnest. “You need to let the pain go, Zuko.”

He finally met his uncle’s gaze. “How, Uncle?” 

Iroh offered him a wan smile. “That is something you have to find for yourself.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with your mother’s ashes?” 

“Uh, no.” Zuko swallowed hard. He hadn’t. They’d just been sitting in his apartment.

“Sometimes, it helps to let go of your hurt with a physical object,” Iroh told him.

Zuko looked at him. He swallowed again. “Is...that what you did with Lu Ten’s ashes?”

Zuko’s cousin had died in a car accident when Zuko was eleven. He’d been close to Lu Ten, and after Ursa had left, Iroh had taken Zuko in like he was his own son. Iroh didn’t talk about his son much, and Zuko had rarely had the nerve to ask any questions. 

Iroh nodded slowly. “Yes. I spread his ashes at the beach. That’s where we had some of our best memories.”

“Did it help?” Zuko asked quietly.

“Yes,” Iroh said. “It did.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed. Maybe that’s what he needed to do with Ursa’s ashes. He needed to let her go, let go of his pain and the regrets and the questions that he would never get answers to. He needed to find a way to make his peace with his mother’s death and the void that it had left behind. 

“Where would I do it?” Zuko asked.

Iroh shrugged. “That is up to you.” He gave him a curious look. “Perhaps...you could return to Clear Lake and spread her ashes there.” 

Zuko heard the double meaning in his uncle’s words. He’d told Iroh about Katara—not the depth of their relationship, but about her connection to Ursa—but Iroh was sharp, and Zuko wondered if Iroh sensed that there was more going on there than his nephew had let on. 

Zuko frowned down at his hands, held loosely in his lap. “Maybe.” 

“I know that her leaving has left a wound that hasn’t healed,” Iroh remarked gently. “And I can see that you’re bitter about the happiness she found in that place. But you must ask yourself this, nephew: would it have been better if she had been sad and miserable for the rest of her life?”

Zuko’s frown deepened as Iroh’s words sank in. He wouldn’t have wanted Ursa to be miserable. Part of him  _ was  _ glad that she’d found happiness and purpose. But he still resented her for leaving, and for not coming back. 

“You must know that she always loved you, and missed you,” Iroh went on softly. “But you mustn’t hold her absence against her entirely, Zuko. She did what she thought she had to do.”

“I know,” Zuko murmured. “But it still hurts.”

“I understand,” Iroh said sympathetically. “And it probably will for a long time. But you must start to heal.” 

Iroh stood up then. He looked at Zuko as if he could see right through his skin and into his heart. He offered Zuko a kind smile. 

“If you need time off, take as much as you need,” Iroh said. “Just let me know what you decide.”

“Of course, Uncle,” Zuko said thickly, feeling his throat tightening. “I appreciate it.” 

Iroh went to the door, but he paused with his hand on the knob and looked over his shoulder at him. “I love you, Zuko.”

He swallowed. “I love you too.” 

* * *

  
  


That night, Zuko lay awake in bed, tossing and turning against the war in his mind. Some part of him could sense that maybe his uncle was right, but he was afraid. 

He didn’t want to go back and face that town again. His mother’s ghost was there. But maybe if he returned, if he spread her ashes there, Ursa could be laid to rest and he could find some healing. 

And then there was Katara to think about. He wanted to see her again. The distance between them had done nothing to dampen his feelings towards her. But again, Zuko was afraid. He was afraid that if he went to her again, he might not ever leave. 

_ But would that be such a bad thing?  _ a quiet voice whispered in the back of his mind. A memory pushed to the surface of his mind: sitting in the passenger seat of Katara’s truck, her intelligent blue eyes studying him.  _ What’s out there for  _ you? That’s the question she had posed, and it had remained in some quiet part of his brain all this time. 

He no longer found contentment here. He felt restless ( _ like a caged animal _ ), and it made him want to climb out of his skin. His life felt like a lie here, like the pieces had been arranged without him knowing about it. His life and choices were the result of his parents’ lives and choices, and he was starting to resent that. 

Zuko wanted to run away from this place, this life, these troubled thoughts that swirled in his brain like trapped smoke. But no amount of running would make it go away. His mother was a testament to that. 

He understood what Katara’s grandmother had said to his mother about being a black bird in a blizzard. He felt like that, too. Zuko couldn’t keep flying in this storm. He needed a safe place to land. 

With a frustrated growl, Zuko tossed off his suffocating covers and got out of bed. He padded barefoot out into the living room, pointedly ignoring the urn on the TV stand. He stepped through the glass doors and out onto the balcony. 

The cold wind sank into his skin but Zuko didn’t care. It reminded him of the permeating cold of Clear Lake. 

Zuko leaned against the railing and cast his eyes over the city, the black skyscrapers punctuated by the glowing lights of their windows. Overhead, he could barely see a star through the purple haze of light pollution. And even from this height, twenty seven stories up, he could faintly hear the sounds of the late-night traffic below. 

Suddenly he was overwhelmed by that now-familiar sense of hiraëth. It was so powerful that his chest actually ached, and Zuko wrapped his arms around his elbows to give himself some comfort. 

He’d always loved the anonymity of the city, the fast-paced lifestyle. He liked the skyscrapers and Puget Sound. He liked the variety and the culture. But now he felt overwhelmed in its presence. 

He longed for the quiet stillness of a frozen lake; the peace of a frosted forest broken only by the sound of birds calling in the trees. He wanted to feel the warm crackle of a fire on his skin and smell the woodsmoke. 

Zuko turned his back on the city skyline and went inside. His eyes fell on the silver urn and he felt his throat tighten. 

His mother was happy there. She had made a life and formed friendships. It was clear through her journals that she had always missed her children, and that leaving them behind was something that had haunted her into her final days. 

He’d read through all of the journals now. Even after Azula’s silence, she had wanted to reach out to them, especially to Zuko. But she never quite found the nerve to. She was afraid that she would get the same cold silence from him (and how he wished he could tell her that wasn’t true, that was  _ never  _ true), and she worried that reaching out to him would do more harm than good. That he was better off without her. 

Those words had ripped open fresh wounds and Zuko had cried, his heart shattering in his chest as he held the journal close to him. His anger at Azula had resurfaced then, hot and breathing fire like a dragon. If Azula had just said something,  _ anything,  _ Zuko could have connected with Ursa and put those fears to rest. 

Ursa had died worried that he hated her. That killed him. 

Zuko walked past the urn and into his bedroom. Without a conscious thought, he went to his closet and pulled out his suitcase. Zuko began to pack.

Within an hour, he was on the road headed south, his mother’s urn resting on the passenger seat beside him.

* * *

It was amazing how different everything looked without a healthy layer of white snow covering it. Zuko almost felt like he’d entered an alternate universe, one where the bones were the same but the flesh was different. 

He followed the winding road up the mountain and through the trees. The sun shone brightly, but there were still plenty of patches of snow along the roadside. 

He eyed the curve where he had buried his Challenger in a snowdrift, where he had fortuitously met Sokka, and in turn, had met Katara. 

If Zuko hadn’t crashed his car, and if Sokka hadn’t been the one to rescue him, there’s a chance that he wouldn’t have met Katara. When he had come here, he’d had no intention of really meeting Katara. She’d given him directions to the house and told him where to find the key. His plan had been to go to the house, sort through everything, and go home.

But then he’d met Katara, and that had changed everything. 

Zuko drove through town without stopping, but he couldn’t help the way his gaze lingered on the bar. It looked so perfect there, with the now half-frozen lake serving as its backdrop. He would go there once he was done. He needed to see Katara. But first, he had to take care of this. He followed the road out of town and to his mother’s cabin. 

It looked so different now without the snow. Zuko parked in the gravel driveway and got out, breathing in the fresh, crisp air. It tasted different than it had during winter, but it felt good in his lungs. 

Zuko leaned across the seat and grabbed his mother’s urn before he walked towards the lake. It was mostly thawed now, and the water glittered under the sun. Zuko walked to the edge of the bank and stood above the lake, feeling the cool breeze rustle through his hair.

He felt a melancholy wash over him, and he gripped the urn closer for a moment, suddenly terrified of letting her go. 

But Zuko knew that he needed to, so he opened the lid and held the urn out over the water, feeling the tremble in his limbs and the stuttering of his heart in his chest. He felt like he should say something, but he didn’t know what. 

So he just said, “Goodbye, Mom” as he began to pour her ashes into the lake. 

Tears stung his eyes as he watched the grey ash fall into the water. Some of it was carried away on the breeze. Soon the urn was empty, and he too, felt hollow.

With a shaky breath, Zuko dropped onto the bank, closing his eyes and letting his tears fall. He felt hollow, but lighter, as if his mother had taken some of his pain with her. 

Maybe his uncle was right, after all. 

Zuko didn’t know how long he sat on the edge of the lake. But he watched as the sun sank deeper across the sky and the air grew colder, lost in thought. But then a sound cut through the stillness.

He didn’t need to turn around to know that it was a blue Ford Ranger coming up the driveway. He didn’t need to turn around to know whose familiar footsteps were crunching over the gravel. And he didn’t need to turn around to recognize the soft wet tongue that lapped his scarred cheek.

Zuko turned at last, and he saw Katara standing there with her hands in the pockets of her jacket, her hair in its familiar braid draped over her shoulder. She was bathed in the golden sunset, and her beauty did not fail to take his breath away. 

Kira nudged his jaw with her damp nose and let out a low whine, and Zuko stroked her soft fur before he got to his feet and looked at Katara. 

“Hey,” he said.

Her lips turned up in a soft smile. “Hey.”

Zuko walked over to her, Kira tagging along behind him. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. 

“How did you know I was here?” he asked her.

Katara’s smile didn’t waver as her eyes flickered to the Challenger. “I saw your car. Not too many of those around here.” 

“Right, yeah.” He couldn’t help but smile at her. He’d missed her. “It’s good to see you.”

One hand reached up to tuck a flyaway lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, you too.”

“How’s the bar?” he asked her.

“It’s great,” she replied. She peeked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Maybe you can get a bite to eat before you head out of town.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, his throat suddenly tight. He stepped closer to her. “I’d like that.”

Katara studied him for a moment. “Did you get the answers you needed in Seattle?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I did.” He met her gaze. “They brought me back here.”

He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “How long will you stay?”

“I don’t know.” Zuko reached out to her and brushed his hand across her cheekbone. Katara closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “I’ve missed you.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’ve missed you too.” 

Zuko let his fingers trail down her braid. “I think I’d like to stay for a while. If that’s okay.” 

Katara smiled brightly at him, and suddenly his sense of hiraëth dissipated. 

“I’d like that,” Katara murmured. 

“Me too,” Zuko said softly. 

Then he leaned down and kissed her. Her lips were familiar, and he sank into the kiss. Katara wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her. 

They broke apart when they needed air, cheeks flushed and pupils blown wide. Katara entwined their hands.

“Come on,” she said as she pulled him towards their cars. “I’m sure Sokka will be happy to see you. And I’d like you to meet my grandmother.”

“Okay,” he said. 

Zuko smiled at her back, feeling not hollow now, but light, like a feather. Katara was the breeze, and he let her carry him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated on whether or not I wanted to include his confrontation with Ozai, but I decided it wouldn't have added much to the story, and it might have made this chapter too confrontation-loaded dealing with both Azula and Ozai. And after completing the chapter, I realized that it would've made it quite a bit longer than the rest, so I decided to cut it out and just have Zuko inner monologue it instead.
> 
> Here is the complete soundtrack to this fic. All of the chapter titles are Death Cab for Cutie lyrics, and of course, the bonus track for Chapter 7. 
> 
> Chapter 1: Title and Registration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGEyqP0744c)  
> Chapter 2: Marching Bands of Manhattan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUpSuFCcavQ)  
> Chapter 3: Black Sun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNs5my51z2w)  
> Chapter 4: Black Sun  
> Chapter 5: Passenger Seat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKmGJParYno)  
> Chapter 6: We Looked Like Giants (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIVVEIdu2g(  
> Chapter 7: We Look Like Giants  
> Chapter 7 Bonus Track: Where It Stays by Charlotte OC (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP9IJgdNIkA)  
> Chapter 8: Waterfalls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWpBPaSkaBA)  
> Chapter 9: That's Incentive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53qYMNgVd_Y)  
> Chapter 10: Crooked Teeth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjLae4GD4k)


	11. Epilogue: We'll Live In Slow Motion and Be Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this?? An epilogue?? My, my, what self-indulgent trash I am.
> 
> Epilogue title comes from Death Cab's Song, "Doors Unlocked and Open". (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYvFDhNXXE)

Zuko stood on the edge of the lake, feeling the warm sun on his skin and the wind through his hair. This perfect summer was drawing to a close, but there were good things yet to come. 

He heard her feet crunch over the gravel, and he smiled adoringly at Katara as she made her way over to him, one hand pressed to her round belly. She returned it readily and put her free hand in his when he offered it to her. Zuko helped her over to where he stood on the grassy bank. 

The pregnancy hadn’t been planned, but neither of them could be happier. Their families were excited for them. Zuko finally felt like life was well. 

They’d moved into Ursa’s cabin. They ran the bar together, and Iroh had even begun supplying them—and Kanna’s store—with tea and coffee from the Jasmine Dragon. Zuko had been shopping for rings and planned to ask her to marry him. 

Zuko had spent the last six months more happy than he could ever recall being in his entire life, despite everything that had happened before he’d come back. 

Once Katara was beside him, Zuko slipped his arm around her waist and drew her against him, pressing his free hand to her belly as he planted a kiss on her forehead. 

“Hey, love,” he murmured against her skin. “I thought you were resting.” 

“And I thought  _ you  _ were putting the crib together,” Katara said pointedly, poking him in the chest.

“Those things were invented by evil people who want to watch the world burn,” Zuko told her, and she chuckled. “I’ll look up a YouTube tutorial, I promise.”

“I guess that works.” Katara leaned her head against his shoulder and let out a deep breath. “It’s such a nice day, isn’t it?” She peeked up at him with a smile. “Are you ready for the snow?”

Zuko held her tighter. “As long as I have you and our daughter to snuggle up with, I think I’ll live.” 

Katara let out a little laugh as she turned her head and pressed a kiss to the corner of his jaw. 

“I can’t wait,” she said. 

He leaned down and kissed her. When he pulled back, he smiled softly at her. “Me either.” 

Together they stood and watched the lake, perfectly content. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said 10 chapters. And I really meant it.
> 
> But the truth is that I fell in love with this version of Zuko and Katara and the little world I built for them, and some of you guys inspired me (*cough cough* looking at you, Peppersaurus89 and Lolzadog) with Katara becoming pregnant, so here. Take this xD.
> 
> Honestly, this could have very easily become a 50k+ word story, but I like the end product, and I'm glad it turned out the way it did. So I'll leave you with this glimpse at happily-ever-after. Maybe one day we'll return to this corner of the universe, but for now, I lay it to rest. <3


End file.
